The Mandalorian Wars
by DeralianShadow
Summary: 3976 years before the Battle Of Yavin, the Mandalorians have begun their incursions of non Republic worlds the on the Outer Rim. The planet of the Deralia being among the first to fall to the Mandalorian onslaught.
1. Chapter 1: Humble Origins

_"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step . . ." K'ung Fu Tzu_

**T**he harsh dry Deralian winds had picked up again, fanning the flames of the gigantic pyre that smoldered at the center of the ruined colony. Thick black smoked billowed in every direction filling the sky, turning both Deralian suns a blazing blood-red. There was also the smell, the unmistakable smell of charred and rotting flesh.

Canderous Ordo breathed in the air. _The smell of death_, he thought to himself. _But also the smell of victory._ The Ordo clan had again helped win yet another victory for the Mandalorians. And this time it was against a worthy adversary: the Deralians. Originally Deralia was chosen for its strategic spot as a branching point for several less traveled hyperspace lanes all of which spanned out into the Outer Rim regions. The colony there was small; it consisted of a single settlement with a diminutive population numbering in the mere thousands. Yet despite their sparse numbers and more primitive weaponry, the colonists fought valiantly against the overwhelming hordes of Mandalorians. Mandalore anticipated that the planet would be subdued in a matter of hours, yet using some unusual battle tactics the Deralian warriors held off their invaders for a standard month.

Both baffled and delighted with the Deralians' tenacity, and knowing that eventually the sheer numbers of his clans would break through their defenses, Mandalore had offered them favorable terms of surrender. But their warriors vehemently refused, leaving him with no choice but to slaughter them. However, in the face of impossible odds they did not retreat to cower behind their women and children like other humans had done. In the end their deaths were not entirely in vain: in losing everything the Deralians had won the respect of the Mandalorians, which made the eventual discovery of the ruined settlement more difficult to understand.

Mandalore dealt very practically with people he conquered: once the men were completely slaughtered, the women and children would be taken prisoners. The captives were then divided up among the clans: children were taken and raised as Mandalorians, women were paired up with Mandalorian warriors and any offspring would also be taken and raised as future warriors. With every conquest, the new additions to every clan more than made up for any casualties endured. That was their way of life. The Mandalore warriors lived for battle, for life itself is a battle; an endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

But the Deralians refused to be conquered. Upon entering the settlement, the Mandalorians were stunned. The degree of fierceness the Deralian men had shown in battle paled to the fanaticism of their women. Determined not to succumb to captivity, the women had destroyed their own settlement. They burned their homes and poisoned their drinking water. And it did not stop there: every single woman had committed suicide. Some died by a single blaster-shot to the head or a vibro-blade to the heart, others by drowning or poison, and some had simply jumped off the high cliffs that surrounded the colony. The massacre was not confined to the adults alone, for mothers had purposefully slaughtered their own children rather than having them face the bleak prospect of capture.

To Mandalore and his warriors, suicide was the ultimate abomination. It went against everything the Mandalorians believed about life. The whole situation hit Canderous especially hard—for the barren Deralian landscape reminded him of his home world with its parched valleys, deep canyons and dusty plateaus. That thought immediately brought up feelings of his wife and their two children, safe and comfortable back with the rest of the Ordo clan. There were so many children, many of them the same age as his, strewn lifeless on the ground. There just seemed to be no point to it, which made him so angry he kicked a small stone lying next to his foot and sent it flying. _What a waste_, he thought as his stomach threatened to rebel. _What a terrible awful waste._ He scowled and gritted his teeth behind his helmet cursing just beneath his breath as he and the rest of the warriors continued to search the perimeter for possible survivors.

The more the Mandalorian warriors searched the settlement, the more obvious it was that there was no one left alive. Mandalore himself, puzzled by the tragic turn his most recent conquest had taken, had given the order all the remains to be recovered and burned. "This should be taken as an omen," the battle hardened warrior said quietly.

Although some of his advisors were inclined to disagree they did not protest. Ever since the Sith War and his dealings with Ulic Qel Droma and Exar Kun, Mandalore had grown more cautious in the way he interpreted events. Some clan members quietly whispered that he had grown more superstitious and that the Sith and the Jedi had somehow weakened his resolve. Still others said that Mandalore still had dealings with the Sith. In reality, the Mandalore that allied with the Sith twenty years ago and the Mandalore who now led the clans were not the same person. It was the strange creatures on the Dxun Moon that ultimately killed Mandalore. Had it been by simple chance that he had found the old Mandalore's armor and helmet, and assumed his identity? No, it was the Force. The turn of the events that brought about and ended the Sith War ultimately brought about his own rise to power. And the more he thought about this, the more he feared the Force for no matter how bravely he and his clans fought in battle or how strong he thought himself to be, the Force to him was this great big ominous thing that could somehow ruin the most carefully thought out strategy. And knowing that there was something completely untouchable that transcended his perception caused him to look at the universe much more closely. Deep down, Mandalore began to think that everything that he was doing had resounding implications beyond his own ability to reason which was why he began believing in omens and curses. "I want all the remains gathered and burned as soon as possible!" he ordered. "We leave as soon as it is done, we will not settle this planet," he said as he climbed the back of his warmount and returned to his ship accompanied by several of his more trusted warriors.

Twelve hours and seven-hundred and forty-two corpses later, Canderous and fellow warriors still had not finished with their gruesome task. The death was starting to wear away at him, and the only thing that made his task easier was an apparent custom among the locals to cover their faces. This shielded him from staring constantly into blank unreadable faces of the dead people he carried, but it did not keep his pride from turning into rather obvious disgust. Casting a final carcass on the now hill-sized pyre he resolved to take a walk to clear his nostrils of the rancorous stench that pervaded the center of the settlement.

A gust of evening wind blew with a soft mournful howl that resembled a muffled mewing noise. He dismissed it as he paced towards the far edge of the village, the gravel making a constant crushing noise under the weight of his heavy combat boots. Coming to the edge of the plateau he stopped within a few centimeters short of a precipice that plummeted forty-five meters down. Behind him he heard the sound of footsteps coming his way. They belonged to another clan member. He turned his head and nodded in a primordial gesture of recognition.

"Careful," the other Mandalore warrior warned as he eyed the edge of cliff uneasily through the low-light vision of his helmet visor. "It's a very long way down."

Another gust of wind blew with the same pitiful noise.

"Did you hear that?" Canderous asked his companion.

"It's just the wind," the other said dismissively.

The noise repeated itself again, but there was no wind this time.

"There it is again!" he exclaimed.

"Yes. I hear it too now."

"That's not the wind," Canderous said decisively as he gazed down into the chasm. "It's coming from down there." Through the greenish tint of the low-light setting of his helmet visor the Mandalorian could make out a few corpses that were scattered against the jagged rocks. Some were entirely dismembered and dashed to pieces against the sharp stones. So little did they resemble a living being that they looked more like broken dolls an angry child had scattered in the heat of tantrum.

"I'm going down there to have a look," he declared as he checked to straps of his jetpack to make sure everything was in order

"Okay," the his companion said. "But you know the drill; signal if you need any help."

"I will," Canderous said as he activated the ignition switch of his jetpack. A blaze of orange exhaust lighted the vicinity has he lifted off the ground. After bringing himself over the edge of the cliff, he began lowering, carefully keeping his hands on the controls and easing himself into a slow and steady decent.

Whatever was making the noise definitely had been startled by the commotion. By the time the Mandalorian had reached the bottom of the cliff, the sound became twice as loud.

Within a few centimeters of the ground Canderous shut off his jet-pack entirely. The gravel made a crunching sound as his feet settled onto the floor of the basin. Eyeing his surroundings, he again saw bodies of women and children everywhere. It was pretty obvious how this group had died.

The noise was much clearer now with a "_mew-mew_" sound that resembled a wounded kitten. It came from the direction of small pile of bodies just a few meters away from him. Canderous adjusted the light spectrum of his helmet visor to infrared and saw the clear glowing signature of a living being on top of the pile. Immediately readjusting his visor back to its low-light setting, the Mandalorian darted towards the direction of the pile.

The "mew-mew" had now become a clear and distinct "Mama!" It was the unmistakable cry of any terrified child screaming for its mother.

Moving several bodies out of the way, Canderous came across what-appeared to be an injured Deralian toddler with the distinct female facial covering. She was in a fetal position clinging to a body that had to be her dead mother. Either because of the dark or because she was too consumed with grief, she did not appear to notice the large armored warrior that hovered over her until he reached over and grabbed her.

The child let out an ear-piercing shriek as she tried to wriggle out of his grasp.

"_Hold on now_," he said. "_Stay still! I'm not going to hurt you._"

But the child did not seem to listen or care, she kicked and fussed like an angry kitten.

Canderous sighed in frustration. _This just isn't going to work_. If the child was going to be this uncooperative it would be impossible to fly back up to the plateau. As he thought this his helmet communicator came on: "_Canderous?_" the other Mandalorian said on the line. "_What's going on down there? I just picked up a lot of noise. You in trouble?_"

"_Neah_," Canderous said as he let go of the child, who immediately ran and hid herself behind a rock. "_I found a survivor—a small child._"

"_That's a change_," the other replied. "_Bring him up._"

"_I can't_," Canderous answered. "_She won't sit still_."

"_Then shoot her_."

"_Yeah_," the Mandalorian said as he adjusted his blaster to its lowest setting. "_I think I will._"

The child did not appear to understand the Mandalorian language, it did not take her very long to figure out what the large barrel of a blaster pointed at her meant. There was no where to run or hide, in the end she simply laid there bracing herself for the inevitable.

_Smart kid._ Canderous mused as he squeezed the trigger.

* * *

**T**wo days later, Mandalore held a conference aboard his ship with all the clan leaders, in which he presented his strategy. A holo-map of the known galaxy glowed in the middle of the chamber. 

"This is the galaxy as it is now," Mandalore said as he clicked on the remote pad by his seat. "The red dots are Republic systems." As he said this, a large cluster of red dots concentrated in the center of the galaxy lit up. "The blue are colonies that are part of the expansion regions, still economically tied to the Republic but without representation in the Senate." A semi-circle of blue dots lit up surrounding the cluster of red dots. "The green indicates everything else outside our own control, this includes Hutt Space and much of the Outer Rim." A scattered shower of green swirled around the red and blue. "Finally, the yellow shows our worlds which are mostly in what the Republic refers to as the 'Unknown Regions.' As you can all see there, the most recent incursions we have made have cut decisively into the Outer Rim areas." A significant cluster of yellow then lit up on one side of the map with the single wedge stabbing through the green. "Now," Mandalore said as he pressed another button on the control panel. "Compare this to the galaxy approximately twenty years ago." With that second map lit up parallel to the first map, each colored region was smaller but the yellow was less than half of what it was in the other map.

"We've almost tripled our territory!" one of the taller more prominent warriors exclaimed.

"You are correct, Cassus," Mandalore continued. "As far as conquered territory goes, we have completely outpaced the Republic."

Cassus Fett smiled. "That's because the Republic is pitifully too large for its own good. It takes the Republic weeks, sometimes months, to reach its more remote systems."

"Which is why I have called this meeting," Mandalore continued. "I know that some of the younger warriors here don't remember the Sith War, although there are many of us who do. I remember walking streets of Coruscant. I remember seeing the Republic officials fleeing in fear as we stormed the Senate building. The only opposition the Republic had to offer came from the Jedi, and they fought respectfully. Ask any child about the Sith War and they will mention Exar Kun, Ulic Qel Droma, and Aleema of Krath, but few remember the Mandalorians. Yet the Sith could not have overrun Coruscant without us. The Sith stood back and let us do most of the fighting. And what happened when we had brought the Republic to its knees? Did we finish what was begun? Of course we didn't. Why? Because the Sith themselves turned on one another. Aleema gave the order to retreat when we were winning. She betrayed Ulic, and then Ulic betrayed Kun. Yet somehow they are remembered. We are a mere afterthought."

"Yes, Mandalore," Cassus added. "But we have avenged our loss of Coruscant. We have conquered and even obliterated worlds that allied with the Jedi against us."

"Have we?" Mandalore questioned rhetorically. "All of the advances we have made have been worlds outside the Republic. Which brings me back to my original message: it's time. It's time we take back what we lost because of the Sith. It's time we launch our own assault on the Republic. The prophesied Great Battle is at hand. The momentum we've gained by conquests on the Outer Rim has been geared towards this one goal. The Republic is weak because it has far too many systems such that they can all be defended at the same time." As he said this, the first map began to zoom in to one specific sector of the galaxy. "The Republic is so spread out that its military can only fortify only a few key locations. A few of these are in the Expansion Regions, another handful lie in the Inner Rim, more lie in the Colonies, and finally the Core Worlds where the vast majority of its forces are concentrated."

As Mandalore spoke several ribbons of purple light began crossing the galactic map.

"I'm now indicating the major hyperspace routes linking the Republic," the warrior said. "Our first major target shall be Taris, then Onderon. Onderon is a good staging position because it is close to three of the major hyperspace routes."

"But, Mandalore," another Mandalorian chimed in. "Onderon is heavily guarded. Given the current state of our clans, we are in no condition to expand all the way to Onderon."

"Onderon will be the first step against the Republic. We conquer Onderon and that will jeopardize trade along both the Permillian Trade route and the Whitebeam Run. Block those routes and it will only be a matter of time until the Colonies surrender. All of our efforts must be concentrated towards Onderon," Mandalore responded. "Since we now have Deralia, we can attack the Ardilo Sytem. From there, we will have access to several systems along the Permellian Trade route and then Althir. Once Althir is taken, with their resources we can launch an assault on Cathar. From there, the first Republic world to be taken will be Onderon, since we already have a base of operations on the Dxun Moon. Once Onderon is taken the Inner Rim is sure to fall. From there, we will control the major access points into the Galactic Core. All we have to do is continue expanding at the rate we have been going."

"This will be accomplished, Mandalore," Caldar, Canderous' father and leader of the Ordo clan added.

"Then our plans are clear," Mandalore said. "Once we have resupplied and repaired the damage we have incurred from the Deralians, which should take several days, we will set out for Ardilo. We should arrive at Ardilo in about a week. You are all dismissed."

The massive group of warriors began shuffling out of the room. As this happened, Mandalore stopped Caldar of the Ordo clan. "I've come to understand that Canderous picked up a survivor the other day."

"Yes, Mandalore," Caldar said. "He found a small human child amidst the remains of the colonists about two years of age.

Mandalore was curious. "That's encouraging news. Despite the numbers, the Deralians were respectable warriors, it is only fitting that this child should be inducted into the clans and be raised as a warrior." Finally something positive came out of the Deralian encounter.

"I'm afraid that will be most difficult," Caldar said.

"How so?"

"The child is female and we've been having a hell of a time trying to get it to eat anything or shut up for that matter."

Mandalore paused for a second. "I wish to see it."

"Very well," Caldar said. "But don't say I didn't warn you." He turned to his son. "Canderous?"

"Yeah?" his son looked up.

"Mandalore wants to see what you brought home."

Canderous grimaced under his Mandalorian armor. "Okay," he said to Mandalore. He shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room. He returned not fifteen minutes later carrying a wriggling bundle of rags which he placed on the floor.

The three Mandalorians could not really tell when the child made more noise, when on the floor or when being carried. Either way, for the most part it seemed hysterical.

"_Why is it covering its face like that?_" Mandalore asked quizzically.

"_It seems to be some kind of local custom_," Canderous said.

"_And it hasn't been eating?_" Mandalore asked.

"_No_," said Caldar. "_It kept me and several of my warriors up all night crying and screaming._"

"_What about taking it back to your planet, Canderous, and letting your woman look after it?_" Mandalore asked.

"_Please_," Canderous said. "_I already have two daughters, I don't need a third_."

"_Hmm_," Mandalore thought. "_Well it can't stay here_."

"_Why don't we just save ourselves the trouble and just shoot it_?" asked another Mandalorian.

Mandalore gazed at the warrior who had rudely interrupted the conversation. "_Why don't you just mind your orders?_"

"_Yes Mandalore_," said the warrior as he left the assembly room.

"_Canderous, you'll be heading back to Ordo to get supplies and munitions for the assault on Adirlo_," Mandalore said "_You can take the child with you and leave it on one of the populated systems nearby. From then on it'll be someone else's problem._"

Canderous stared down at the noisy toddler. As a warrior he could care less what would happen to the troublesome, orphaned child of a dead opponent, but as a father, he had to be a bit more concerned. His daughters were both older than the Deralian orphan by several years, yet still he would not want them abandoned on some strange world at the mercy of strangers. He would have to think of something. "_Alright_," he said. "_That's fine with me. The sooner we get rid of it, the better_."

The three Mandalorian warriors continued discussing their battle plans: the details of the intended invasion and subjugation of Ardilo, the invasion of the neighboring star systems, the laying of mines along the Whitebeam Run, and the eventual inevitable attack on Onderon. The child peeking out of one of the rags that she used to keep herself covered wondered up and down the reception chamber, then stopped and looked in amazement at the two holo-projections of the galaxy.

Out of the corner of his eye Canderous saw the child reaching out to touch one of the galactic holograms. "_Hey! What are you doing?_" he roared.

Startled by what seemed to her a big roaring monster, muttering something in a completely incoherent tongue, the child immediately began crying again.

Caldar sighed as his discussion with Mandalore, once again, had been interrupted. "_There are better ways to deal with an unruly two-year-old than yelling_," he said as he grabbed what looked like a small pistol hanging from his belt and handed it to Canderous.

"_That's what tranquilizer darts are for_."

Canderous stared at the small dart gun. "_Are you sure it's safe to use a drug like that on a kid?_"

The older Mandalorian warrior shook his head with exasperation. "_Yes. It's not going to hurt it. How else did you think I managed to get to sleep last night? Besides, I used to use these things all the time when you were a lad. And look how you turned out._"

Canderous was a little perplexed. Still. He stared at the child as it laid kicking and screaming on the floor of the conference room. _It's better than dealing with that racket_.

Once again the child found herself staring at the barrel of a gun as it fired.

Canderous shot a single dart that hit the toddler in the neck right next to the jugular artery. Yet to his amazement, it just seemed to make her even more hysterical. So he fired a second dart, and she still did not go down. This led him to fire a third shot that hit a child square in the chest which again yielded no effect.

Mandalore paused a moment as he realized what had just happened. "_Canderous?_" he asked mechanically. "_Exactly how many times did you shoot it?_"

"_Three times_," the young Mandalore warrior said in obvious frustration. He looked at Caldar, who drew a blank stare.

"_It should have worked by now_," the older warrior said. "_Those are the same darts we use to catch wild bantha._"

"_Well how many did it take last night?_"

"_Do you think I remember?_" Caldar said. "_It was late. It took a couple of shots for that damned kid to shut up_."

"_How interesting_," Mandalore said. Being of an alien species, he was rather unfamiliar with the subtleties involved in raising human young. "_Do all the human children in your clan have such resilience?_"

"_No_," Caldar gazed spookily at the unaffected toddler. Perhaps the events of the past two days had caused some kind of prolonged adrenaline rush in the child's body. It would explain why she couldn't settle down and why the darts were not working. "_Try firing one more shot_," he said to son.

Canderous pulled the trigger of the dart gun once more. This time, the child dropped to the floor with a soft thud noise. "_Finally_," he said as he picked up the limp youngster as if she were a toy.

"_Put her back in her cage_," Caldar said. "_And when you're done doing that, come back so we can discuss the supply list for tomorrow_."

"Yeah," Canderous growled as he left the room. He looked down at the motionless youngster. _You cause an awful lot of trouble for someone so small, little one. But at least tomorrow, you will be someone else's problem._

* * *

**T**he next morning, Canderous climbed aboard the _Firebrand_, a small light freighter belonging to his clan, along with the captive Deralian child. He laid the still comatose toddler in the passenger seat next to him and started priming the ion engines for take off. 

A few minutes later the _Firebrand _took off from its perch on Mandalore's main ship. As the warrior punched in the last coordinates to into the navigation computer to make the jump to lightspeed, he glanced over his shoulder at sleeping youngster. Hopefully, the child would be out for hours, which would make dropping her off somewhere much easier. Few things draw more unwanted attention than being accompanied by a screaming child in public.

As white star-lines from the console window vanished into the bluish tunnel of hyperspace, Canderous turned his head to the mini-holo display of the invasion plans for the Bajic Sector. As he did this, he was not aware that from underneath the child's tattered head covering, two eyes studied him intently. For what seemed to be forever, she studied this horrible monster that had destroyed and killed her family, destroyed her home, and taken her hostage. Every detail was noted from the movements of his hands, to the frenzied look of his grey-blue eyes, to the strange words he spoke as he spoke to the all too familiar voices coming out the communications console. And suddenly as she focused in even more, on the tone of the voice, the rising and falling of distinct syllables, the gibberish became meaningful language: "Once the Bajic Sector falls we will proceed to Lannik and make our presence known there . . ." One by one, name of system after system was mentioned. And suddenly, as if recalling a hazy distant memory, a distinct picture of each flashed before her mind.

As he finished discussing the battle plans with his father over the comm, Canderous could not help but feel he was being watched. He glanced over to see if the child was still asleep.

The youngster froze. She could hear the thudding of her own heartbeat as the warrior reached over and lifted her face covering to check that she was sleeping.

Canderous shook his head, as started checking over the list of munitions that he had been instructed to purchase. Perhaps it had only been his imagination, or perhaps he was just uneasy about leaving the child to whatever fate had in store for her. Finally, he shrugged the last bit of concern off with the thought that he was a warrior and not an esthetician; it was not his job to worry about her welfare. All he had to do is follow orders, and help his clan to victory; nothing more. And that was precisely what he was doing.

* * *

**E**xis Station was a newly built mining outpost and, unbeknowst to all but a few sentients, a Jedi repository. Ever since the Jedi had transported the vast quantity of what was salvaged from their great library on Ossus and held their convocation to pick their new High Council there ten years ago, it was frequented by many humans. Since the Mandalorians had begun their incursions along the Outer Rim, the station had started to become a nexus for displaced refugees. This made the facility overcrowded, noisy, and a breeding ground for unsavory characters trying to con desperate beings out of their last credits. 

The space traffic control operator confirmed the landing coordinates for Canderous' ship. "Okay_ Firebrand_, you are cleared for landing at docking bay eighty-five. Please note that a one-hundred credit docking fee is due upon arrival and failure to pay will result in the seizure of your ship and all of its contents."

The Mandalorian rolled his eyes, "Great, that's just wonderful."

"Have a nice day," the operator said as he signed off.

Canderous growled as he muttered something in Mandalorian which amounted to a vivid description of what the operator could do with his nice day and where exactly to put it. Again, he checked over his shoulder to check on the sleeping toddler, who had not stirred. He maneuvered the ship towards the landing bay. It was such a simple plan, really. All he had to do was to leave the child somewhere without drawing too much attention to himself, and if he could do it before the damned kid could wake up it would be even better.

The _Firebrand's_ landing pads touched down with a soft thud. Steam poured out of its exhaust ports as the boarding ramp lowered. As soon he powered down the engine controls and locked the ignition, Canderous reached over and picked the child up.

"Alright, kid it's time to go," he placed the unconscious child as if it were she were a toy dangling over his right shoulder. "I know you don't like me any more than I like you."

The child remained motionless.

Imagine, seeing your home world destroyed before your very eyes as fire rains down on your village from strange ships in the sky. Imagine hearing your mother talking to the other women in your village saying it's better for you to die than to be taken captive by marauders. Imagine being carried over to the cliffs and holding on to your mother's clothing as she throws both you and herself onto the sharp rocks below. Then, being discovered by the monsters that have raided your planet, being taken captive anyway, shot, beaten, and terrorized. Then hearing the monsters' plans to do exactly what they have done to your world, to a hundred thousand others. Imagine being carried upside down, not knowing whether you are going to live or die, through a strange place filled with creatures you never imagined existed. Imagine secretly praying that the awful monster carrying you will not realize that you are awake by the thudding sound of your heart racing. Imagine already crying for days yet the only thing to comfort you is a slap in the face or a boot to your back. Imagine seeing a green bug-eyed monster going up to the monster that is carrying you.

"_Before you enter the space port, you must pay the docking fee!_" a sickly looking, green, bug-like Rodian cried in Huttese at the grumpy-looking Mandalorian.

Canderous angrily shoved a hundred-credit bill into the Rodian's face. "There you go! Now get lost, and keep your slimy little paws off my ship or you'll be staring up the barrel of my blaster!"

The Rodian scampered away.

The Mandalorian made his way out of the docking bay and into the main area of the spaceport. The station bustled with life from all over the Outer Rim regions. There were aliens of all kinds, including some Canderous recognized from words that his people had already decimated. The streets had the mixed smell of hundreds of different pheromones, engine exhaust, urine, and yesterday's cooking. Canderous wrinkled his nose as the stench found its way into is nostrils. _How can anyone live in a place like this?_ His eyes watered. _Destroying this dump would be doing it a favor_. Still, he was here for a reason. "Excuse me," Canderous said he tapped the shoulder of an old B-4 protocol droid. "Do you know where I can find the medical bay?"

The droid stared up at the gigantic human that towered a full half meter over him. "Why certainly sir," the droid gestured towards his left. "Take the turbolift to section five, it's located on the second floor."

"Right," the Mandalorian said as he shoved his way to the turbolift.

* * *

**S**ince the start of the Mandalorian incursions, the Exis Station Medical Bay had become increasingly flooded by more and more beings seeking treatment for anything from a sore appendage to the Flaavian measles. Today was no exception. Lotta Edun, the Ithorian receptionist had his hands full today. The waiting room was filled to capacity, and he was on his way to lock the door before any more patients came in when all of a sudden the was brushed aside by a brutish-looking human carrying a bundle of rags that trailed over his shoulder. 

"_Excuse me, human_," the Ithorian said. "_But we are not taking any more admits today. You will have to come again some other time._"

"You look pretty open to me," Canderous said forcefully.

"_This facility is up to capacity. I was simply going to lock the door when you rudely barged in_," Lotta said.

To the average galactic inhabitant, waiting to receive medical treatment was just a tedious fact of life. But to a Mandalorian whose people did not treat their wounded, who thought the best treatment for a sick being was a quick shot to the head, having to wait for anything was a definite insult. "Look," Canderous said in very low annoyed voice. "I'm just here to drop this kid off," he said as he reached up the back of the youngster's tattered clothing and pulled her up by the collar and dropped her on the floor.

The child landed with a loud thud. She immediately tried to crawl away.

Lotta's eyes bulged with shock. "_You monster! How dare you drop your child like that! You ought to be ashamed!_"

"Actually, I'm not," Canderous said matter-of-factly. "It's not really my kid, so it's not really my problem. I found her wandering around on the docking bay," he added, trying to make his story believable. "I figured she got lost so I brought her here. You know—in case her folks decide to look for her. And she looks a little hurt."

Lotta stared at the child as she ran and hid behind the reception desk. Whatever was wrong with it, it sure was skittish. "_Um. Alright, Human_," he said. "_I will go and speak to one of the medics to see to her_." The Ithorian looked at Canderous suspiciously. "_You stay right there. You're going to have to sign some forms and speak to the station authorities_." With that, the Ithorian immediately disappeared behind a door next to his reception desk. A few minutes later, the alien came back and the tall human was nowhere to be seen.

Lotta sighed as he shook his large head and then stared at the child who was peeking out from behind the receptionist's chair. "_Great. Now what am I going to do with you?_"


	2. Chapter 2: Sticking Out

"All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. A man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity." James Fenimore Cooper

"**L**ord Mandalore," the younger Mandalorian said excitedly. "Passive sensors indicate fourteen contacts emerging from hyperspace at the edge of the system."

Mandalore stood motionless gazing out through the bridge's main observation window aboard the _Apocalypse_, the massive Dreadnaught serving as his personal command ship. Through his helmet visor, his eyes focused intently on Lybeya, a yellow star at the very edge of the Bajic Sector. The information his scouts had brought him was accurate: the Republic really was planning a major military exercise in the Vergasso Asteroids today. "Any reports from our fighters positioned inside the third asteroid belt?" he asked calmly.

"Cassus reported seven Corellian war cruisers, six lighter Hammerhead carriers and a heavy Dreadnaught," the other warrior replied.

Mandalore paused. "That's not a standard fleet complement, even for a military exercise." He was a bit surprised. _An entire fleet squadron?_

"Sir?" the young Mandalorian asked.

"The Republic never dispatches their larger capital ships beyond the Mid Rim. A Dreadnaught is a burden for most small spaceports on the Outer Rim to refuel and resupply. And the independent systems don't take too kindly to having a menacing warship patrolling their shipping lanes." Mandalore put his gloved hand on the part of his helmet that would have been over his chin had he been human. "There's someone on that ship whom the Senate wouldn't trust with a normal military escort." Whoever the Republic official was on that ship, using him or her as bait to goad the Republic into a full scale war would accelerate the timetable of his invasion. The ship provided him with a perfect opportunity.

The younger Mandalorian turned his head as he heard another message coming in on his helmet communicator. "Copy that," he said looking back at Mandalore. "The Dreadnaught just made a micro-jump"—just before he could finish the sentence the imposing hulk of the Republic Dreadnaught darted into the path of the observation window. "They've detected us!"

For a second, Mandalore thought the other ship had found them despite being concealed behind a large asteroid and running a stygium crystal cloaking device, but then his decades of battle experience immediately took over. "No, Larix," he said contemplatively. "They are well within firing range, but their guns haven't turned." He turned and gazed down at the Mandalorian monitoring the sensors in the crew pit behind him. "Ydrel, are their shields on?"

"No," the crewman below replied. "Their shields and weapons systems are inactive."

"There you have it." Mandalore's voice had a hint of satisfaction. "If they knew we were here, they would have done something by now." The cloaking device technology he had acquired in the Unknown Regions was already making up for the lives it cost to get it. Mandalore turned and surveyed the bridge and crew as the final preparations were made for a surprise attack on the unsuspecting Republic Forces. He could not stop the overwhelming flood of pride as he paced the bridge of his command ship. The _Apocalypse_ was a symbol of Mandalorian might, being one of the three-hundred Republic warships stolen from the Foerost by the Mandalorians during their alliance with the Sith over twenty years ago and one of the lead cruisers at the battle of Coruscant under the command of Ulic Qel Droma. Although that assault turned out to be a complete failure due to dissension among the Sith, Mandalore had managed to flee into the Unknown Regions with most of the original fleet intact.

Only years after the Sith War did he realize how debilitating the raid on the Foerost had been: at the time, the _Apocalypse_ had been a prototype for the next generation of Republic warships which included a new experimental generator that could project a gravity well large enough to knock ships out of hyperspace and prevent them from jumping to lightspeed. The loss of the ship must have set Republic ship-building technology behind for years because none of Mandalore's scouts ever reported seeing another ship like it even on their long-range reconnaissance missions into Republic space. The _Apocalypse_ had become special to him. He had decided to upgrade the ship by replacing the sublight engines, and doubling the lateral thrusters while increasing the thickness of the hull. With double the amount of particle containment fields of a typical ship of its size and redundant circuitry, it was still capable of unleashing a devastating flurry of turbolaser fire and proton torpedoes with half of its superstructure missing. Although many of his clans had settled remote planets on the Outer Rim, Mandalore chose to make the _Apocalypse_ his permanent dwelling. And just like any home reflects the personality of its occupants, it too was very much like him: old, tough and ready to take on the universe.

"Sir," Larix turned once more to face Mandalore. "All weapon systems are ready, and our squadrons are in positions along the first and third asteroid belts awaiting orders. Shall we begin jamming their communications?"

Mandalore eyed the Republic Dreadnaught that loomed in the observation window. It had been about a week since the clans had left Deralia and Canderous had disposed of the troublesome little captive. He had underestimated the Deralian's ability to react when he had given the order for the fleet to come out of hyperspace immediately in orbit around their planet. He was determined not to make the same mistake twice. "No," he said focusing intently on the view ports that were speckled like bright little dots all over the Republic warship's hull. He fought hard to shake the feeling that although carefully concealed, somehow someone somewhere on that ship would suspect something. "A jamming signal from our end will allow them to trace the coordinates of our vessel and spoil the element of surprise," he replied. "Send word to the _Obliterator_ and the _Praxis_. On my signal the _Obliterator_ is to jam all hyper-wave transmissions, and the _Praxis_ shall jam all radio-wave transmissions. The interference signals must coincide with the activation of our interdiction field generator otherwise the Republic ships will anticipate an attack and withdraw from the system before we engage. This way, the only ships the Republic will think to attack will be the ones broadcasting the interference signal, while our ship on the other side of the second asteroid belt will remain concealed, maintaining the gravity well and preventing them from getting away."

"Yes sir," Larix acknowledged.

"They can't attack what they can't see, and since our ship is cloaked, by the time they finally figure out what's happening we'll have already boarded that ship," he said as he pointed to the Republic Dreadnaught.

"That sounds like a foolproof plan, Mandalore," Larix said.

"Not exactly foolproof," Mandalore said quietly. "A ship like that must have a diplomatic envoy of some kind, otherwise it wouldn't venture this far out. And where the Republic sends its bureaucrats, the Jedi can't be too far behind. If there's a Jedi on that ship, our cloaking device will be useless. But I've faced Jedi before," he said reassuringly, "they can be worthy adversaries once they get off their hind-ends, stop meditating, and actually _do_ something. Having a Jedi in the mix should make things _interesting_. I want to give our prey a chance to deploy their craft, and then we'll crash their little tea-party and give them a _real_ military exercise."

* * *

"**I** have a bad feeling about this," Vice-Chancellor Antares warily cast a circumspect look through the briefing room's large window aboard _Vanguard_, one of thousands of heavy Dreadnaught cruisers making up the backbone of the Republic Fleet. The large asteroid several thousand meters in diameter, floating innocuously in space at a kilometer's distance from the ship, made him feel uneasy. His deep voice was barely audible over the rest of the chatter in the room, but the line captain, who had every interest in humoring a guest with the power of granting an instant promotion, did not waste any time.

"Is there something wrong, your Honour?" Line Captain Karath inquired, noticing that the vice-chancellor had not touched the Corellian Brandy he kept swirling nervously in the glass he held tightly in his right hand. "Would you perhaps prefer a different beverage?"

"No," the vice-chancellor snapped. "I would _prefer_ that the ship wouldn't be separated from the rest of the fleet by several billion chunks of flying rock."

"They're actually metal, sir," the line captain replied. "This system is made up of five concentric asteroid belts, each between several hundred to several thousand kilometers apart. And they are all made of either iron or nickel.

"Oh, really?" the taller man cocked an eyebrow. "Charming."

"That's what makes this system so perfect for the tournament. The high metal content of the asteroids makes finding other ships difficult, even at close range. The pilots will have to rely on their own shooting skills independently of their targeting sensors. Most of the rings make perfect obstacle courses for sharpening the skills of our best pilots, except for that troublesome second ring." Karath pointed to the field of asteroids in the window's direct line of sight. "It would be suicide to fly a ship through that."

"That doesn't still explain why we're cut off from the rest of the fleet," the vice-chancellor insisted. "I don't like it. I feel exposed."

"Strange. I don't sense any danger," Master Vrook, one of the two Jedi masters in the room, said. "Master Edan? What do you think?" he glanced over to the big table where his companion was sitting.

Master Edan, a Deralian who maintained the custom of his people of covering their faces, glanced up. The expression on his eyes, which were the same color as the vice-chancellor's, was one of deliberation. "Hmm. Well the vice-chancellor may have a point. It might be better if the ship was with the rest of the fleet, just to be on the safe side."

Karath glanced across the room to Admiral Halan who was chatting with some of the other military officials and dignitaries. "Admiral? Can you please help me reassure our guests as to why you have positioned the ship away from the rest of the fleet?"

The older man walked over to the window where the vice-chancellor was standing. The admiral did not like having to repeat himself, especially to a politician who was not aware of the military protocols designed to ensure his own safety. "As I tried to explain earlier, your Honour," he said with special emphasis on the word "tried." "Since we will have over five-hundred starfighters practicing ship-to-ship combat maneuvers, it was for the best to have you and the other visitors at a safe distance in the event something should go wrong."

"As I understand it, Admiral, the fighters' weapons have been modified not to cause any damage," Antares countered.

"That is true, but that still doesn't mean that something can't go wrong," Halan replied. "Don't worry, Vice-Chancellor. This ship and her crew are more than cable of answering to a threat"—_even an imaginary one_.

Although the admiral had not voiced that last portion of his sentence, Antares' eyes narrowed as if he had been insulted none the less.

Sensing the uncomfortable silence, Master Vrook tried to lighten the mood by changing the subject. "So Admiral," he said jovially. "Are you ready to admit defeat this year as well?"

Halan frowned. Vrook was referring to a ten-year rivalry between the pilots of the Republic Forces and the Jedi Order that began with the first Galactic Starfighting Tournament. The tournament was sponsored by the Republic and hosted by the Republic Navy. The best fighter pilots from the Republic and neighboring independent governments would compete in a grueling, one-week, winner-takes-all, dog-fighting competition. From the beginning, the Jedi fighter pilots, with their lightning-quick reflexes, dominated the tournament. The Jedi had won the tournament ten years in a row, which was why it was no surprise that any one of the twelve Jedi pilots participating competition was favored to win again. Yet there was more at stake than just the Republic Navy's pride: the results of the GST would ultimately determine who would get the kath hound's share of the yearly hundred-billion-credit budget apportioned by the Senate Finance Committee.

Ever since the Jedi Order evacuated Ossus and reestablished itself on Courscant following the destruction of the Cron Cluster twenty years ago, it had started to take over the functions normally reserved for the military. It was part of the plan by the Senate to consolidate defense spending and redirect some of the funds from the Republic's military budget into rebuilding the many systems that were ravaged during the Sith War.

"I don't know Vrook." Halan masked his annoyance. "I just spoke to the administrator of the Caridan Military Academy who told me that one his cadets shattered your Jedi pilots' best record in the simulator a little over a week ago. I think there's going to be an upset this year."

The Jedi master was anything but impressed. "Nonsense, Jedi pilots are far superior in skill than any hotshot pilot your academy can train." Vrook looked at the other Jedi master who shrunk in his chair like he was ready to dive under the table after hearing his companion's remark. "Edan will undoubtedly agree."

The Deralian Jedi master shook his head. "I'd think it best to avoid topics of conversation that may offend our gracious hosts," he replied diplomatically looking at the admiral. "That's an unusual feat indeed for a young cadet. What's his name?" As much as he wanted to wipe the memory of his companion's comment from the mind of every single person to the room, steering the conversation away from Vrook's incendiary remark was the least invasive way to handle the situation.

"Um," Halan was a little embarrassed. "I'm sorry; off the top of my head I don't remember. I'm not that great with names especially when I oversee a fleet of tens of thousands of people."

"It's alright, Admiral. I'm sure that once the competition is over, Master Vrook would be delighted to meet this talented young man," Edan glared at Vrook. "Wouldn't you, Master Vrook?"

"Yes. Well, assuming he's as good in real life as he is on the simulator," Vrook said grudgingly.

"I have a question, Master Vrook," Vice-Chancellor Antares said, turning in his attention from the observation window to the grumpy-looking Jedi master. "If the Jedi Order is so 'superior' as you say, why is its track record as chaotic as that unstable asteroid field out there?"

"What do you mean?" Master Vrook demanded.

The vice-chancellor's face betrayed half-amused smirk. _Wow. So much for no emotion_, he observed mentally, knowing that Vrook, in all probability, could read his thoughts. "The typical cycle of most asteroid fields is a period of stability followed by a period of absolute chaos. Everything seems peaceful until something happens to one asteroid which sends it flying into another asteroid, setting off a massive chain reaction reducing the entire belt to complete disorder."

"Forgive me, but I fail to see how that observation is relevant," Vrook snorted.

Antares turned his head and stared, his steel blue eyes cut into the older man. Not many men had the nerve to stare down a Jedi master, let alone make one flinch. The air in the room suddenly became dense as if flooded with unsaid accusations.

Captain Karath exhaled heavily. He remembered someone from Fleet Command mentioning how it was a bad idea to put Vrook and the vice-chancellor together in the same room. He glanced at his chrono, and tried to keep his eyes from rolling.

_Hmmm. I thought Jedi had better vision than the average sentient. Oh well, my mistake._ Antares was as shrewd of a politician as they came. He was also charismatic, having just the right combination of brains and good looks to either make people trust him or write him off entirely. He looked to be right around half of Vrook's age. The hair around his temples had just started to turn distinguished silver, contrasting with his otherwise jet-black hair, but the wistful gleam in his eyes told a different story: it was the look of a sentient who had been around long enough for nothing to surprise him. _I'll try to explain this very slowly then._ "Given what I've read in the Republic archives, it appears that since the very start of the Jedi Order, it has gone through an endless back-and-forth cycle of war and peace—a rather predictable pattern, I'd say—like the cycle of an asteroid field. One asteroid goes awry, and then all hell breaks loose."

"That's an extremely heavy-handed historical overgeneralization," Vrook said defensively.

From behind his face covering Edan let out a long sigh. _Here we go again._ He exchanged glances with one the blue-armored Senatorial Guards who cast a sympathetic look in his direction. The reception was about to get much longer. _Vrook_, he said telepathically through the Force so no one else could hear him. _Perhaps we should not wear out the vice-chancellor after he has already had a very long journey to get here_.

But Vrook had apparently decided to tune him out.

For the most part, Antares was a conservative: he believed that the separation between the Republic and the Jedi Order was there for a reason. So, when the Senate voted to grant the Order land to build their new temple, Antares strongly disagreed, but being the Speaker of the Senate, with duties that were largely ceremonial, he had no choice but go along. However, he also chaired both the Senate Defense and Finance Committees which gave Antares considerable amount of regulatory power behind the scenes. And he had not hesitated to use it: he rejected the first set of plans proposed for the construction of the Jedi Temple, and when his veto was overridden, he successfully managed to limit its building funds by citing a forgotten, archaic law mandating the separation of Church and State. "Alright, Master Jedi," Antares said calmly. "I'll admit to being a little premature in drawing conclusions without explaining my reasoning. If you will allow me to go into detail I'll gladly show you what I mean."

Vrook frowned. "Proceed."

"Well, let's begin at looking at the Sith War twenty years ago. Didn't that start when Exar Kun left the Jedi Order and became a Sith?"

"Yes, but that means the Sith were to blame for that confrontation, not the Jedi."

"But wasn't Kun a Jedi before he turned?"

"Well yes—he was, but—"

"So the Sith War originated from within the Jedi Order and not with the Sith."

"Yes, from your point of view."

_Vrook_. Edan reached out through the Force again. _You're in way over your head. Stop this_.

"Okay, let's assume it's, as you say, merely _my_ 'point of view,'" Antares continued. "Tell me, when a statement is not supported by fact, it remains a mere opinion—am I correct?"

"Yes you are."

"And when then the facts support that statement, it's no longer an opinion but a valid conclusion based upon the available evidence?"

"Of course, but you've offered only one example. And I have a counter example: the Hyperspace War. That wasn't started by the Jedi, and had it not been for our actions, the Sith would have taken over the Republic."

"Yes, but where did the Sith come from anyway? According to Master Edan, who was the assistant Lore Master on Ossus, the ancient Sith Lords were once Jedi who broke away from your Order about three thousand years ago," Antares added, noticing that Vrook was now visibly annoyed.

"Yes, but the Sith teachings did not originate within the Jedi Order," Vrook protested. "Look, I don't know where you got all this information, but I can assure you that's not the whole of it." _Edan, you have a lot of explaining to do_, Vrook shot back through the Force angrily. Master Edan was the High Council's liaison to the Supreme Chancellor. He was also the head of the Jedi Shadows, a secretive body of Jedi Knights devoted to weeding out the Dark Side wherever it could be found. Their activities were concealed even from the High Council, and their methods, which often included deception and espionage, were questionable at best. _Sharing some of our more privileged information with the vice-chancellor, is grounds for expulsion from the Order_.

"Vrook," Edan spoke again. "Let's not bore the other guests with an unnecessarily long history lesson." The Deralian Jedi Master glared incredulously at his visibly older comrade. _What he speaks of is common knowledge, and can be found in any library with a half-decent history section. You've been spending way too much time at the Jedi Enclave. The vice-chancellor of the Senate is not some half-literate agricultural administrator you can boss around the way you do on Dantooine_.

"But hadn't those Jedi already fallen to the Dark Side _before_ they discovered the Sith teachings?"

"That's it," Vrook said impatiently. "You can't simply judge the entire Jedi Order by a handful of rejects anymore than you can navigate an asteroid field by studying small portions of it." The Jedi master could not shake the claustrophobic sensation of being trapped.

"Alright, Master Vrook," Antares conceded. "But whenever I went back and looked at your Order's history, it seemed as if its most promising and devoted students were always the first ones to embrace the Dark Side."

Vrook's expression remained tense. "You have an extremely inflexible opinion of the Jedi Order, Vice-Chancellor. I suggest that you withhold your judgment until you are better acquainted with our history."

"I would gladly do so, if there was more of it made public to clarify things," the vice-chancellor said. "If the Jedi really care for peace and justice, why all the secrecy? Unless of course they are not what they present themselves to be."

Again Edan tried to reason with Vrook. _Vrook, stop this before you do damage that cannot easily be undone_.

"I suppose you would be the expert," Vrook said. "You are a politician, after all."

Edan covered his eyes and shook his head with embarrassment. _Good job, Vrook. You haven't lost your touch_.

Antares smiled. "Thank you for that most appropriate observation, Master Vrook. I must thank you for enlightening me on the nature of the Jedi Order. I will remember to pass on your comments at the next Finance Committee meeting next week. I'm sure the Senators will receive them with the same enthusiasm as I have."

Vrook fell silent, realizing his error. He had allowed himself to be manipulated into saying something that could be used against the Jedi Order. Antares had used his initial comment as bait, and he had fallen for it. He was livid both with disbelief and disappointment. Through his mastery of the Force, Vrook should have seen the comment for what it really was. Yet somehow he had not, anymore than he could determine anything about Antares by relying on his five senses. To Jedi, most sentients displayed their thoughts and emotions with the same flagrance as one who hangs their unwashed underwear for all to see. The vice-chancellor was a closed book, which meant he was, in the very least, unpredictable and, at the most, dangerous. The Jedi master glanced at Master Edan in astonishment who returned his gaze with clear exasperation.

_Don't look at me that way_, Edan retorted through the Force. _I warned you to back off_. He got up from his seat at the conference table and a casually straightened his cream-colored Jedi robes. "If you will excuse us, gentlemen, I need to have a word in private with Master Vrook, I think our communicators just went off." He glanced politely at Vrook who finally began to listen

Antares looked back at Edan. "Of course, Master Edan. Far be it for me to interfere with the official business of the Jedi Order." He turned and reached out to shake Vrook's hand. "I really enjoyed our conversation, Master Vrook," he said with a smug smile. "I look forward to hearing more of your views on the history of the Republic in the near future."

Vrook grudgingly reached out and shook the vice-chancellor's hand. Antares was really smooth. Vrook had always known that the Republic Senate was full of politicians could shake hands and backstab at the same time, but he had never actually encountered one. "Perhaps," he said finally. "It was a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Vice-Chancellor."

Antares beamed. "Oh. I can assure you the pleasure was mine."

Vrook thought to himself. _Yes, I can see that_.

Edan walked over and placed himself right next to the other Jedi master. He really was fighting the urge to grab Vrook by the hood of his robe and drag him out of the room before he really wore out their welcome. "Vice-Chancellor," he said shaking hands congenially. "It was a pleasure to see you again." He went around the room and took his leave of the captain and the admiral, both of whom had witnessed the embarrassing exchange, and then walked over to the large door to exit the room.

He was quickly joined by Vrook, who followed a few steps behind him. Both Jedi masters turned, bowed and left the room.

Once outside the conference room, Edan turned and scowled at Vrook. "I'm amazed at your neglect of etiquette, Vrook. Your usually remove your boots before you put your foot in your mouth."

Although trained to overlook his emotions, Vrook could help but notice his own embarrassment. Despite the youthfulness of his voice, Edan was the more senior Jedi master. At one time Vrook was Edan's Padawan. "I'm sorry, and I regret reacting the way I did. But he deliberately provoked me."

"Nevertheless, you had the choice of discontinuing that line of discussion at any time, yet you didn't," Edan replied. "It is unwise to irritate a politician, especially one as influential as Antares."

"Do you think he'll actually bring the conversation up with the Senate Finance Committee?" Vrook asked nervously.

"I don't know," Edan said. "Politicians are a lot like children; they rarely realize the harm they can cause before it's already been done. It's a trait you may be familiar with, as both you and Antares share it."

"Me?" Vrook gasped. "I'm not anything like him! The man is an ultra-conservative radical. He is completely unwilling to compromise or entertain any possibility of change."

Edan's eyes stared expressionlessly at his former Padawan. "Jedi who live in transparansteel towers shouldn't throw lightsabers, Vrook."

* * *

**S**quadron Leader Reanis was having a hell of a day. His face was tired of having to smile for the admiralty, the various extra-Republic dignitaries, the administrators from several Republic military academies, two Jedi, and of course, who could forget, the vice-chair of the Senate. He was exhausted from dealing with a discipline problem that had developed with the Delta Squadron, one of forty-two fighter squadrons that were participating in the GST. From his assessment of the situation, the trouble started about a week ago at the Caridan Military Academy. A raw, barely trained flight cadet managed to beat the Republic Starfighter record on the simulator. The record itself, held by no less than a Jedi pilot, had been untouchable for over fifteen years. As an accomplishment, it was without a doubt stunning, but the ramifications made him wish that the tall, skinny, flight cadet, who came from a colony in the middle of nowhere, had never been born. The Administrator of the Caridan Military Academy came up with the bright idea put a request into Fleet Command that the young flight cadet, who had barely finished his first semester at the Academy, be put on one of the squadrons participating in the GST. Apparently, Fleet Command was desperate enough to do anything to get this year's defense fund money because the order came to Reanis at the last possible minute to add the young cadet to his flight roster.

Then everything started to spiral out of control. When he added the cadet to the Delta Squadron's flight roster, one of the eleven other pilots had to be dropped. And since the whole thing had been sprung on him at the very last possible second, he did not have time to inform the dropped pilot until the squadron was already aboard the _Resilient_ in hyperspace en-route to the GST. The end result was that the dropped pilot was so angry that he had got the idea into his ferrocrete head to confront the new cadet in the main soldiers' quarters. A fist-fight ensued which escalated to involve the rest of the pilots on the squadron and nineteen other soldiers. In the end, the pilot who started the fight had received permanent reprimand on his record and was suspended from serving on the Delta Squadron, the flight cadet had gotten off with a warning, and the _Resilient's_ Executive Officer held Reanis personally responsible for scuffle among his men. The entire squadron would have been disqualified if the line captain had not interfered. Apparently, the admiral had taken a particular interest in the latest addition to the Delta Squadron.

Then, just when his pilots were going over the final preparations for launching, Delta Twelve's astromech droid had short-circuited. Reanis had a pretty good idea what had happened: the suspended pilot decided to tamper with the little T-1 droid's motivator as a final jab at the new cadet. Although the issue of disciplining the already suspended pilot would have to be addressed later, Reanis' immediate concern was finding another astromech droid, otherwise the whole squadron would be grounded.

Reanis paced back and forth near the corridor exit of the _Resilient's_ launch bay, waiting for a response from the bay's junior crewman regarding his request to "borrow" one of the ship's droids. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the newest member of his squadron, trying to look busy by doing a second double-check of his Aurek attack fighter.

The youth looked painfully out of place wearing his grey academy uniform rather than the standard issue red and black of typical Republic Military personnel. He had decided not to change into his flight suit just yet since there was still the question of whether or not he had an astromech droid. He walked the way most boys do after having a dramatic growth spurt, in spite of the straight posture that was a tell-tale sign of military schooling, there was a youthful awkwardness about him as if he was not quite sure of his own height. This explained why he had nearly bonked his head half-a-dozen times while walking beneath the nose of his fighter. It was obvious that he had grown up in one of the Outer Rim Colonies. He had a genuineness of that made him stick out among his more jaded colleagues from the Core Worlds. He also had the look of a wholesome grain-fed colony boy: two strands of his combed-back, wavy, reddish-brown hair refused stay in place and kept coming into his large puppy-brown eyes. He wore an expression that was somewhere between a pout and a frown, as part of his forehead creased with the exception of the kolto patch that had been placed over the cut he received in the brawl earlier the day.

The pilot officer, who had been suspended, had not been so lucky: he had come away from the confrontation with the young cadet with two black eyes and a broken nose to match. Of course the entire situation had been his fault as most commissioned officers knew better than to go up against a new recruit who was not yet aware of his own strength. Reanis himself knew that the midst of training was the most dangerous time for a military recruit because they had not tested their own limits. A man who did not know his own limits was as much a danger to himself as he was to others. That was what bothered Reanis the most about the new cadet: he definitely had talent, but did he have the self-control? Reanis did not like the idea of having to wait and find out even though he had no choice.

"Sir?" the crewman returned and walked over to where Reanis was standing.

The cadet looked up, anxiously waiting for any good news.

"Well?" Reanis asked. "Anything?"

"Sir," the junior crewman said as gave a quick salute. "I'm sorry; logistics checked with engineering, and they said they couldn't spare any T-1 droids."

Upon hearing the logistics officer's words, the young cadet's shoulders sunk back with dismay, but then he heard the distinctive low hum of an astromech droid's gears as it made is way through the corridor.

"However," the crewman continued. "A visitor from the _Vanguard_ on tour of the ship heard about your predicament and decided to volunteer his personal astromech droid." He turned around and saw the little droid speeding down the corridor ramp. "Here it comes now. The droid is on loan until you no longer need it." The logistics officer then left.

Reanis smiled turning to the relieved youth. "You hear that, Junior? Looks like you're gonna fly today after all. Go suit-up."

Junior was the call sign that the other pilots had dubbed the young cadet. Although he hoped he'd eventually grow out of the name, the cadet knew the fact they had given him a name at all was a sign of acceptance. "Yes, sir!" the youth said excitedly as he ran down the corridor to change.

"Kids," Reanis said as he shook his head with exasperation. Then he looked back at the droid who matched his sentiment by the tone of its chirping noise. "That doesn't look like a standard issue T-1 droid" he said looking at a few additional components that stuck out of what looked like the droid's head.

"That's because it isn't," said one of the deck operators who had come with a loading-lift to place the droid in Delta Twelve's fighter. "It's definitely a T-series," he said as the little droid rolled onto the loading-lift. "Hmm," the operator bent down and read the little droid's serial number. "It says T3-M4."

Reanis was a little surprised. "Last I heard the T-2 was barely put into production a month ago."

"Perhaps he's a prototype," the operator said. "It's not uncommon for droid production companies to issue early models to potential customers in order to get better returns once their product reaches market."

"Sir, is there something wrong?" Junior came back into the hanger sporting a standard issue flight suit that made him look a few years older.

"No," Reanis told him. "It seems you got a later model than the rest of us."

"Is that going to be a problem?" the Junior asked.

"No," Reanis replied. "It may be a little fancier, but it should get the job done."

He looked at the little droid. "Am I right?'

The droid made an affirmative whistle.

"There, you see?"

"Alright sir," the Junior said. "I'm going to go strap myself in."

"You do that," Reanis said as he reached for his communicator. "This is Squadron Leader Reanis. All Delta Squadron members are to report to the main hangar bay for immediate launch. Reanis out." He sighed as he replaced his communicator back on its belt.

* * *

**I**t was half an hour before the morning shift at Exis Station Medical Facility. The various medics, doctors and nurses were finishing their rounds before the next shift came in. Lotta, the Ithorian receptionist, was at his desk sipping his usual morning cup of caffa and wondering if the strange toddler's parents would finally show up looking for her today. He thought about the same thing every morning for the past eight days, but nothing had happened. Every day, at the end of his shift, he took the public transportation shuttle to the Exis Station security office to see if someone had filed a missing person report looking for the child, and he always returned bewildered that the station police had received no reports of a missing toddler from anyone. It was odd, but it could not compare with the child herself.

His large eyes stared patiently at the small human figure that sat at the children's table in the far corner of the reception room. One of her tiny hands was very skillfully holding a color-wax pencil; the other was on a large piece of flimsiplast. He had finally gotten her to stop hiding her face, although she was still extremely shy. She was no longer terrified of him, and he was very pleased when she finally started talking. The child was very introverted, her sad ice-blue eyes seemed to take in everything, but her words were few.

At first she did not seem to understand a word he was saying, but after a couple of hours, she managed to comprehend him exactly and to go on to completely ignore him. In a single day's time, the Ithorian receptionist's once extensive vocabulary was reduced to five sentences: "_Don't do that!_" "_Come here!_" "_Don't touch that!_" "_Put it down, now!_" and the ever popular "_Get down from there!_" Lotta was really at his wit's end with her.

_Where did you come from, little one?_ Lotta thought to himself.

The child looked up from her drawing and straight at him, as if knowing what was on his mind.

_Surely you didn't just pop out of the ground, like a bafforr seedling._

The child started to giggle. "You're really funny, Lotta," she said in her soft high-pitched voice, as she continued drawing.

The Ithorian sighed. This was one among many unnerving things about the strange little human that bothered him. From the evening of her first day on the station, strange things started to occur. Locked, magnetically sealed doors would be found mysteriously ajar. Various shiny metal utensils, including scissors, knives, spoons, and surgical scalpels, started to go missing. The food re-heater in the staff room was missing a screw from its front panel as if someone had taken it apart and put it back together again. The missing screw was found on the floor in the spare room where the child slept when a medic tripped on it and nearly broke his neck after tucking her in one night. She spooked one of the nurses when, in the middle of the night, she jumped out of bed and walked over to the nurse's station saying that there was something wrong with a comatose patient in the room opposite hers. The patient died minutes later, and the child was very distraught over the death, refusing to sleep for the next two days.

Afterwards, there was the much-debated cupboard incident. One of the younger doctors on the late-night shift, who had volunteered to feed the child in the morning, had brought her into the kitchen with the intent of fixing her breakfast. The night before, the cleaning droid had found the cereal box sitting out on the countertop and placed it randomly somewhere other than its designated location. Right at the exact moment when the doctor was about to get the cereal box, his communicator went off. He went outside the room to answer it, leaving the youngster alone in the kitchen.

A minute later he glanced in the kitchen just to check on her, and his jaw dropped. It looked like someone had tossed a fragmentation grenade in the room while he was away. The door to every single cabinet, from the lowest shelves a few centimeters off the floor to the highest more than two meters tall, had been flung open. The rectangular cereal box with half its contents suddenly had shown up on the table laying on its side, drowning a half-meter puddle of baby-blue milk. The empty milk bottle was on its side, a meter away from nearest piece of furniture as if it had grown legs and jumped off the edge of the table. Laying in and around the milk bottle were hundreds of bloated, milk-laden, soggy-looking cereal puffs. The cereal bowl was on the floor in pieces lying next to the spoon.

And last, but definitely far from least, the toddler was on all fours, in the center of the kitchen table with her black hair covered in soaked cereal puffs, sporting a blue milk mustache that perfectly coordinated with her white and milk-blue coveralls. "Um, sorry," she said softly as the incriminating redness of guilt flushed through her round, little cheeks. Judging by the blast radius and the scatter-pattern of the debris, she had clearly been at the epicenter at the time of the explosion.

No one at the medical facility could figure out how she managed to open the top cupboards, let alone get through the child-proof latches were placed on the back of each cupboard door as a safety precaution against a temporary fluctuation in the station's artificial gravity. Although there was a thirty-credit reward for any staff-member who could get a holograph of a repeat performance, obviously the embarrassment the child felt over the mess she had caused was enough to curb any further desire to imitate anything the adults did. For the rest of that day, the child sat brooding in the reception room with her head down and a despondent expression on her face.

Lotta inquired as to what was troubling her, "_What's wrong child? Why are you not off on one of your scouting missions?_" The said scouting missions were really the child's aimless wanderings around the facility; she had the habit of disappearing and reappearing in the most random places. When asked what she was doing, her reply was "scouting."

She looked up at him, with a mixture of annoyance and sadness. "I've already been everywhere, and besides, no one likes me."

"_What do you mean?_" the Ithorian said gently.

The little girl frowned with obvious disapproval. "I'm trouble. I heard some of the big people saying things about me. How I'm," she paused for a moment trying to remember the exact word among many she had learned in the past few days, "weird?" she questioned. "What does that word mean? It was said like it meant something bad."

Lotta sighed knowing he was in for another lengthy and uncomfortable question-and-answer session that would leave him confused, and her dissatisfied. "_The word 'weird,' as it is used by most sentients who speak Galactic Basic, is typically used to describe something or someone who is unusual. As an adjective, it can be something good or bad. It mostly means that you are different and not quite like everyone else_."

"But isn't everyone different?" she countered.

"_Yes, we're all different_," Lotta said defensively. "_But some sentients are very different, so different that they stick out amongst the rest of us_."

"Then why did the medics say it like it was something bad?"

Lotta paused for a moment, trying to come up with a way to shelter the child's self-esteem. He knew children were impressionable and internalized everything, so he had to mind his words. "_Adults of almost every species start out as children, like you. They go around exploring and learning things just as you have been doing. The universe is full of strange, wondrous, and, yes, even weird things. For a time, adults remain curious about it, but after awhile, their minds start to get ideas of how things are similar rather than different. They become creatures of habit, forming a picture of the universe they are content to have and are no longer interested in exploring—seeing and learning new things_."

"But why?"

"_Because it's hard to keep learning; it's often easier to stick with what you already know_."

"Yes, but what does that have to do with, me being weird and people not liking me?"

"_Imagine believing that the universe was contained within the walls of this facility._"

"But the universe is not contained within the walls of this facility!" the child protested.

"_Rightly so_," Lotta said. "_But imagine it anyway_."

The child closed her eyes trying to imagine all the events of the past few days as if they had never happened. There were no planets, no stars, no moons, and no remote world by the name of Deralia. No horrible armored monsters falling from the sky, like hail, in their roaring metallic basilisk machines, spitting fire everywhere. No long list of names of places she never knew existed that would soon face the oncoming wave of merciless invaders. No endless faces of children, who like her, would be parentless and homeless before the wave of destruction was finally over. No dark, nameless threat that lurked in the lower reaches of her subconscious that filled her with a dread she did not have the words to articulate. All of it vanished for a few seconds as all she concentrated on were the walls and the rooms of the medical facility: the medic down the corridor going over some patient charts, the sixty-eight patients and each of their individual conditions, the chattering of the nurses with one another over a caffa break, the intricate circuitry of the medical assistant droids that rolled back and forth through the corridors making their rounds, and the careful precision of the head surgeon as he made the first incision to remove an inflamed appendix from an anesthetized woman. She was conscious of all of these things as she opened her eyes again.

"_Now_," Lotta said. "_If something came from the outside and threatened your conception of this universe, when you were perfectly convinced you knew all there was to be known, how would you react?_"

The child did not need to imagine her reaction, she already knew how she felt about having her home destroyed, about hearing her father had died, about feeling her mother's last caress, about staring death as it looked down at her from the barrel of a blaster. She was simply too young and too impressionable to feel any sort of rage or hatred as she was still at the stage where a child could resiliently accept change, even if it was painful. This was why she did not understand what Lotta was trying to say. "I'd want to go outside and see what's beyond the walls. The presence of the threat shows I am wrong about the universe, and that it cannot be as small as I think it is. No matter how much I don't like it, I can't make it go away and I can't go back to the way I thought things were."

"_Not everyone shares this way of seeing things, child_," Lotta said. "_Most sentients care more about being right, instead of finding out why they are wrong._"

"So, I'm weird, because I don't fit into their view of reality?" she asked with disbelief.

"_Exactly_," Lotta said, quite satisfied with his explanation.

"So I'm to blame for being different than the way they want me to be?" the child questioned.

"_Well, you do stick out, child_," Lotta said carefully. "_But there's no blame in that._"

"Okay, so I'm weird, and that means I'm different, and I'm different because I'm un—un—" she stuttered as she tried to get her mouth to conform to the complexity of the word's syllabication.

"_Unusual?_" Lotta asked.

"Yes," she replied. "That means different. So you're saying I'm different, because I'm different. And they don't like me because I'm different than what they want me to be. And what they want isn't real."

"_True_," Lotta said.

"Then why don't they like me?"

Lotta looked at her, "_We just went over that_."

The young girl disapproved, "But that's stupid."

The Ithorian was at a loss for words, "_Then I guess you shouldn't worry too much about the stupid things people say._"

"But my Papa used to say that people who say stupid things also do stupid things," the child protested.

"_Look_," he replied. "_The universe is obviously filled with stupid people—people who think they know things they obviously don't, and who don't care to find out otherwise._"

"But what about people who don't know anything?" she asked.

The Ithorian managed the equivalent of his species' smile. "_Well, then they have some hope. The difference between ignorance and stupidity is that stupid people will never admit to their own ignorance, and because of that, they can't be helped._"

The child was silent for awhile, as if going over his words very carefully.

Lotta looked at his watch, seeing that he had to get back to his duties. "_I'll tell you what,_" he said walking to the children's corner of the waiting room and pulling out a pail full of colored-wax pencils from behind the toybox. "_Since you know your way around this place so well, draw me a map, and I'll put it up on the wall so our patients don't get lost_" He had finally come up with something to keep the child busy and out of trouble.

Ever since he had given her those pencils and a ream of blank flimsiplast, she had been off in her own little universe happily drawing picture after picture for three days straight.

Lotta took another swig of his caffa mug and looked down nonchalantly at the Czerka-Certified child-proof candy container that lay empty on his desk. It had been the victim of multiple raids throughout the past week. He knew eventually she could not stay at the medical facility forever, and that a solution had to be found. But he did not know when and how. He reached over and flipped the switch for the holo-projector that was kept on to keep the patients, who were waiting to see the medics, occupied. Afterwards, he went and unlocked the door.

Two middle-aged men were waiting to be let in. One was tall and light-skinned, and was leaning on his companion. He was suffering from a nasty blaster shot to the torso. His short, bald, dark-skinned companion, wearing long, brown robes, was holding him up so that he would not fall over. No sooner had Lotta opened the door, the robed man started to ramble and lecture him about the need for the medical bay to remain open around-the-clock.

Ignoring the complaints of the injured man's companion, the Ithorian receptionist immediately called in two droids that rolled in with a stretcher to take the new admit through the corridor to the nearest examination room.

The injured man's companion tried to follow behind them, as they took him away but Lotta quickly blocked him from entering the corridor. "Just a minute, sir," the Ithorian said. "_You're not family by any chance are you?_"

The man rolled his eyes. "No but I might as well just say I am."

"_Then you're his friend, I take it?_" the Ithorian said coolly.

"Yes," the man said like it was the most obvious thing in the universe. "And a lot of other things too."

"_I'm sorry,_" Lotta said with resignation. "_I can't let you go on there and see him. No one except family is allowed to see our patients. Please have a seat in our waiting room._"

The dark man was frustrated, his thick lips curled underneath his graying goatee. "Look, don't dismiss me like that. The medics have to know the exact extent of his injuries. There's no sense in wasting time examining him when I can already tell them what's wrong with him."

Lotta looked up at the man disdainfully. "_Are you a doctor?_" he asked.

"No."

"_Are you a medic?_"

"Well, not exactly."

"_Then what makes you think you are remotely qualified to assess his injuries?_"

"Because I'm a Jedi, dammit!" the man snapped impatiently. "And I've treated and received more injuries than your entire medical staff put together." As he said this, he brushed aside the lower left half of his brown robe to reveal the cylindrical hilt of his lightsaber neatly clipped to his black synth-leather belt.

Lotta's eyes widened. "_Oh, I'm sorry Master . . . um—_"

"Bindo," the dark man replied. "My name is Jolee Bindo, and you don't have to call me Master," he growled. "Jolee will do fine. I really hate it when people call me that."

"_Yes, sir_," Lotta said apologetically. "_Please follow me right this way_." He stepped into the doorway leading to the corridor to the examination rooms and gesturing for the Jedi to follow him.

A few minutes later, the Jedi sulked in from the examination room back into the waiting room, where after grouchily staring down the empty chairs for five minutes, he turned his attention to the right-most corner where a small child sat, paying no attention to him, a child so strong with the Force that the rest of the room appeared to be bathed in light.

Cautiously, he approached the child. "Um hello, there?" he said to her.

The child did not turn away from her drawing, but she did acknowledge his presence. "Hello," she replied, focusing intently on what she was doing.

"Are you waiting for your mother or father?" Jolee asked.

The child looked up and stared at him point blank. "That would be a long wait," she said matter-of-factly. "Since they're both dead." Her complete lack of emotion caught the Jedi off guard.

"I'm sorry," the Jedi said as he mustered up the only words he had for the occasion. "I too have lost people I loved. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really," the child replied.

"Why not?" the Jedi asked.

"Because, talking to a stranger about it isn't going to bring my family back," the child responded willfully.

"I'm sorry," Jolee tried to be respectful. "I did not introduce myself. I'm Jolee, and your name is?"

"Revan," the young girl said quietly.

"Revan," Jolee's dark eyes narrowed in contemplation as if he had heard the name somewhere in a dream. "Is that your first name or your last name?"

"Revan is my name," the child insisted. "That is the name my mother and father gave me, and the name I went by in my village."

Jolee looked down at one of the finished drawings that lay on the table. It looked like the skillful rendering of a raised plateau along with several small buildings. "Is that your village?" he asked pointing to the drawing.

"Uh huh," the little girl nodded.

"Do you mind if I have a seat and look over your drawings?"

"No," Revan said as she continued drawing, "as long as you don't mess up the order."

Jolee sat down and examined the village drawing more closely. Although the child displayed no outward emotion, her drawings told a different story. Trained in the ways of the Force, Jolee could feel the emotion bleeding off the vivid wax-pencil renderings. He flipped through to the next drawing where three human-shaped figures were walking together in the previous drawing's village. On the left side of the drawing, stood a tall stocky figure that was evidently meant to be a man. Opposite of the man, a smaller, more delicate figure with gentle curves stood grasping a small doll-like figure in its arms. The Jedi gathered that it was probably the young girl and her mother. "Is this your family?" he asked.

The child nodded.

Jolee looked at the figures more carefully, especially at the blocky renderings of face coverings that all three people wore. Then he looked up at the two circles above the family, they were suns. One was light blue with an obvious male facial characteristics; the other was light orange with squiggles coming off the dots that stood for its eyes, clearly female features.

He then looked back at the child, taking note of her fair skin, her jet-black hair and her big, blue eyes. "You're from Deralia, aren't you?"

The child sighed and nodded.

"How did you get here, then?"

"Flip to the next page," was her only response.

Jolee was genuinely startled. The next page depicted a gruesome scene. It was the kind of drawing that only a child who had been through a war would draw. It was exactly like the first drawing except the houses on the plateau had plumes of smoke gushing out of them with orange flames. Five bug-like creatures were in the air, and green lines resembling laser-fire spewed out of them directly onto the village. On top of the plateau the shapes of humanoid looking warriors with different head coverings were holding what looked like blaster rifles, and wherever there was an open patch of blank flimsiplast was a blue human figure with red splotches lying on the ground, no doubt a dead body. At the edge of the plateau, female-shaped figures looked like they were jumping off. And at the bottom of the plateau were disjointed arms, legs, heads, and more dead bodies. "Your village was attacked." The Jedi flipped to the next page, and the answer was obvious. "Mandalorians!"

Being a middle-aged Jedi appearing to be in his mid-forties, Jolee had fought in the Sith War twenty years earlier which was why it was so easy for him to recognize even a young child's rendering of a fully armored Mandalorian warrior. Although they had not been reported in Republic space in quite some time, Mandalorian raids in the frontier regions of the galaxy were a common occurrence, and they appeared to be getting more and more frequent.

The child looked up from her work and stared at him curiously.

"Yes?" he responded, sensing her eyes on him as if she had a question.

"What's a Jedi?" the child asked. "I heard you to talking to Lotta, back there and he let you go in. Is that some kind of healer?"

Jolee winced; it was the last question he wanted to be asked. "I'm not exactly the right person to answer that question," he said bitterly as a pang of emotion swept across his chest. Although it had been twenty years since he had been given the title of Jedi Knight, he would never forget the terrible price that came with it. The last duel Jolee had fought was against his own student, Nayama, who had joined the Sith. And she had not simply been his student, Nayama had also been his wife whom he had secretly married and taken on as his student against the directives of the Jedi Order. The lightsaber burns and multiple fractures he received in the final confrontation with the woman he loved had healed years ago, but he would carry the emotional scars for the rest of his life. Even now, whenever he closed his eyes, he could still see her youthful face burning with pure hatred as she spun her glowing red lightsaber and charged right at him. He had mentally gone over the final movements of his Shien counterattack more than a thousand times since her death, trying to see if there was some way he could have avoided injuring her mortally. In the end she had given him no other choice: as she came at him one more time he dodged under her whirling blade and stabbed upwards with his green lightsaber, catching her square in the chest. Even as he held her, pleading with her to turn away from the Dark Side, in the last final breaths of her life she continued telling him how much she hated him, how much she hated the Jedi, and that she would rather die than live a pathetic lie.

Instead of punishing Jolee for breaking his vows to the Order by marrying and taking on a student while he was still a Padawan, the Jedi Council took him back with open arms. They even granted him the title of Knighthood, saying that his ordeal paled in comparison to any trials he would have faced otherwise. Although he had been forgiven by all of his peers, Jolee had never forgiven himself, nor forgiven them for forgiving him. He hated the fact that wherever he went, regardless of how well he hid it, regardless how far away from the Jedi Order he got, eventually something would happen where he had no choice but to draw on the Force and reveal himself for what he was, a Jedi—a bitter Jedi, but a Jedi nonetheless. "Jedi," he spoke quietly, "are sentients who harness the life-energy of the universe and use it to ensure peace and justice wherever and whenever they are called upon." The words turned sour as he said them.

"So they help people?" the child asked. She thought quietly. "But they can't help everyone."

Her comment snapped the middle-aged Jedi out of what looked like a long trance. "Huh? What makes you say that?"

Revan was emotionless. "Because," she said softly. "If they could, they would have helped my planet."

Jolee managed a sad thin smile, "Of course they would have, dear." Although secretly, Jolee knew the answer was not so simple. Lately, the Jedi Order had focused almost exclusively on Republic worlds and had left the Outer Rim worlds to fend for themselves, as it began acquiring more and more influence over the Senate. It was doubtful, that it would be concerned about the fate of a world on the far side of the galaxy. After all, what implications could the invasion of such remote system have on the rest of the Republic or the rest of the galaxy for that matter?

"Will you excuse me for a moment?" he said as he got up.

The child did not appear to notice as she was busy with a very elaborate drawing of what looked like a space battle.

The Jedi turned and walked over to the Ithorian receptionist who was busy looking at his computer screen. "Excuse me," he asked politely. "But how long has that child been here?"

Lotta looked at the Jedi. "_Approximately eight days. Do you know her?_"

"No," Jolee said. "How did she get here?"

"_A tall, brawny-looking human with fierce-looking eyes came in, and claimed he found her wandering the spaceport_," the Ithorian replied.

"Do you have any idea where I could find this person?" Jolee asked a bit surprised. "Did he leave a name?"

"_No_," Lotta said. "_He barged in, dropped the child, and then left. I've gone to the station authorities trying to see if anyone reported a missing child, and I've gotten no response. I can't even get them to look into the case. Please, Master Jedi, if you have time, can you please investigate this? A medical facility is no place for a child. _"

"I've just spoken to her," the Jedi said looking as the little girl continued drawing. "The child says her parents are dead, and her mind is too raw to invent such an elaborate deception, which means that she believes what she is saying. Tell me, when she arrived, was she covering her face?"

"How did you know?" the Ithorian asked. "It took days to get her to stop shying away from everyone."

"I didn't, I gathered from what she told me that she's Deralian. And from what you've just said I know for certain now," the Jedi said grimly as he observed her out of the corner of his eye. _A Force-Sensitive orphan, showing up here, out of all the random places in the galaxy. . ._ Whether for better or worse, the Force was already at work in deciding this child's fate. He could feel as he looked into her innocent little eyes. He could see it in her soul.

"_Perhaps you know someone_," the receptionist asked, "_who wants a human child?_"

Jolee stared at the child, and sighed wondering if what he was thinking was a good idea considering his own troubled relations with the Jedi Order. He walked over to the her again and sat down.

Revan said nothing as she continued coloring.

"Wow, that's a very intricate picture," the Jedi said with admiration. "What is it?"

"It's a space battle," she said quietly.

"Really? How interesting," Jolee mused. "And who is fighting?"

"The Republic and the Mandalorians," the child replied.

"Okay," Jolee smiled. "So where is this battle happening?" he asked. "I see you've colored in all those asteroids."

"Well, it's kind of hard for me to tell," Revan admitted. "It's far away. In the Bajic Sector, I think, in a system that starts with a 'V.'"

"The Vergasso Asteroids?"

"Yes that's it," she said.

"So these two big ships over here," Jolee pointed to what looked like two caricatures of standard heavy Dreadnaught. "Are those Republic ships?"

"One of them is," she pointed to the Dreadnaught in between two of the asteroid belts. "That one and the other one belongs to the Mandalorians."

"And why aren't they firing at each other?"

"Because they can't see each other, silly!" the child retorted. "The Mandalorian ship is hiding behind this asteroid," she said, pointing to a large looking oval that had the same color as the rest of the asteroids.

"Oh, right."

"The Republic is outnumbered," she said. "The Mandalorians are hiding in the asteroids."

"Now, are those little bug-like things supposed to be Basilisk warmounts?"

"Yes," the child replied. "Those are the same things that fired upon my village, like in the other picture."

"Oh, alright, that makes a lot of sense, then," the Jedi said as he eyed an almost perfect rendition of the wedge-shaped an Aurek fighter, which was the standard Republic stock fighter. "Why aren't the Republic fighters firing back?"

"Because their weapon systems aren't working."

"Okay. Now can you tell me why all the fighters have their weapons off-line?"

The child shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "They just do."

"Oh come, now," Jolee smiled. "You get me all caught up in your little story, and you can't imagine why their weapons systems aren't working?"

"It's not a story!" the child's brow wrinked. "It's real, and if I could figure out why they aren't able to fight back, I would tell you. I don't tell fib-filled stories."

"Okay, okay," Jolee threw a glance at the waiting room's holo-projector and noticed that a strange headline was being holo-casted. "Um excuse me," he said turning to the receptionist. "Do you think you can turn that up a bit?"

The Ithorian agreed and immediately adjusted the controls so that the sound of the holo-cast filled the room. A holo-news caster made an announcement, "This just in from HNN: sources from the Chancellor's office told HNN today that Republic Fleet Command apparently lost all contact with an entire fleet of ships participating in the Galactic Starfighting Tournament in the Vergasso Asteroids, and has been unable to reestablish communications ever since. The disappearance of this fleet is of particular concern to the Senate since the vice-chancellor was on board one of the ships, a heavy Dreadnaught known as the _Vanguard_. We now take you live to Coruscant, where the Chancellor's Communications Secretary is ready to make a formal announcement."

The scene on the holo-projector changed to reveal a furry Bothan male who walked up to a podium in front of a crowd of journalists. The fur on the back of the Bothan's head had risen to indicate that he was genuinely distressed. "Fellow Republic citizens and distinguished members of the press, half an hour ago the Chancellor's office became aware that information regarding the disappearance of the fleet under Admiral Halan's command had been leaked to the press. In an attempt to hinder any false information, this office will now make an official statement concerning the whereabouts of that fleet," the Bothan said calmly, his yellow eyes gazed blankly at the holo-cam as he paused for a second and then continued. "At approximately eight hundred hours Standard Coruscanti Time, Fleet Command was in contact with Halan's Fleet. Three minutes later all transmissions with every vessel were suddenly terminated. This office is working with Fleet Command, Republic Security, and Republic Intelligence to solve the problem. As far as we can tell, Vice-Chancellor Antares was present on board the _Vanguard_ at the time of its disappearance. We would like to stress to our viewers at home that a sudden communications blackout is not and should not be a major cause for concern. Quite a few astronomical anomalies are capable of causing sufficient electromagnetic interference to block communications for a couple of hours. We would also like to stress that other than the said communications blackout, there is no apparent cause for concern or reason to jump to any premature conclusions"—Jolee immediately went over to the holo-projector and shut it off.

The Jedi's head flooded with questions as he stared at the child, she was clearly strong in the Force. But having such clear and detailed knowledge of the future was something even the masters in his day, fell short of. "Okay," he said. "Tell me everything you know about this battle." He walked over to where she was sitting.

His dark brown eyes stared into hers intently. "Is the vice-chancellor alright?"

Revan looked away for a moment as if double-checking something. "Yes," she said finally. "He will not be harmed."

"And the rest of the fleet?" he asked.

The toddler picked up an orange wax pencil and started squiggling what looked like orange flames on five of the seven cruisers in her picture.

"Why can't they jump to hyperspace?" Jolee asked desperately.

"Because," she pointed to the Mandalorian Dreadnaught in her drawing, "this ship is stopping them, and the fighters can't get to it because its on the other side of this dangerous asteroid belt." She picked up a black pencil and drew another Aurek fighter emerging on the inner edge of the asteroid belt she pointed out.

"Why is that fighter bigger than the rest?" Jolee asked.

The child looked up and managed a thin smile. "Because, that's him," she said cryptically.

"That's who?"

"That's the pilot who's going to save them."


	3. Chapter 3: First Strike

"The world's full of individuals who don't want to be heroes." Brian Moore

**T**he hum of seventy-two engines filled _Resilient's_ main hangar. The Aurek attack starfighter's sublight engines had distinct sound: somewhere between a low-ringing hum and high-pitched buzz. One could tell an Aurek fighter's engines were configured properly just by the way the two sublight drives "sang." Some of the more seasoned mechanics would hum or whistle a tune when checking over an Aurek engine; they could instantly know the condition of the engine by the way its drone harmonized with the melody. Of course, to anyone other than a teenager, a mechanic or a pilot, the sound was anything but music: it was an infernal noise loud enough to make everything, including the internal organs of any living being, vibrate. In every hangar of every capital class Republic warship positioned along the void between the second and third rings of the Vergasso Asteroids, hundreds of Aurek fighters came together in one gigantic chorus. And when the time came, forty-two squadrons poured out of the larger vessels like captive humming birds released from their cages. Each squadron headed to its designated rendezvous location to face-off in the Galactic Starfighting Tournament's preliminary elimination round.

The Delta Squadron had just left the _Resilient's_ hangar bay. Twelve Aurek fighters cleared the Corellian cruiser in parallel formation.

"Alright boys," Reanis spoke over the comm signal. "Roll call—" a young woman's voice immediately cut him off.

"Hey Spike!" she complained, calling him by his call sign. "That's not fair! We're not all boys here!" Delta Ten, who was the only woman in the group and known to the squadron as Mist, verbally chastised him.

"Sorry, Mist, I forgot--must be the hair," he chided, knowing that any allusion to Mist's boyish haircut would annoy her.

"You sure it doesn't have something to do with that helmet being on too tight?" came a quick reply.

Ignoring the female pilot's last comment, the Squadron Leader continued. "Delta One standing by."

Because Mist was the only woman on the squadron and one of a handful of women in the Republic Navy, Reanis let her get away with poking fun at him whenever he said anything that sounded remotely sexist. Due to her status as a female pilot, which granted her private quarters, she had the strange fortune of not being involved in the scuffle amongst the pilots earlier that day.

"Roger," the flight lieutenant, who was second in charge, chimed in. "Delta Two standing by."

"Acknowledged," the next flight officer added. "Delta Three standing by."

At the very back of the line of arrow-shaped fighters, Delta Twelve took a deep breath and listened, trying to match names with their individual voices and eagerly waiting his turn to report in. In the Preliminary Round, squadrons of twelve fighters would face-off against one another individually at specific locations in the third asteroid belt. By the end of the first two days, the two top-ranking pilots off each squadron would be placed in the Quarterfinal, from which only twenty-four fighters would remain. After the Quarterfinal, half of the remaining fighters would qualify for the Semifinal, leaving only six pilots to face each other for the title of Tournament Champion.

Junior swallowed hard trying to keep the butterflies in his stomach from morphing into mynocks. As he eased his Aurek fighter into a steady seventy-degree climb, matching the rest of the fighters in front of him, the young pilot could not shake the inexplicable feeling of dread that started climbing up the back of his neck like a laigrek poised to unleash its deadly venom. His breaths were suddenly shallow, his palms became sweaty, and his voice cracked when he finally reported in.

"Wow," Mist's voice sounded loudly over his console. "Junior, you must have a lovely singing voice! Is this your first time?" she asked. "Flying with a squadron, I mean?"

"Um," Junior was at a loss for words. "Yes, it is."

"Awww," she mused coyly. "It's okay. We'll go easy on you."

"Mist!" the Squadron Leader barked. "Leave the kid alone."

Over the comm, Junior could hear the young woman giggling. "What's the matter, Spike—you jealous?"

Reanis knew better than to respond to that question.

"Sorry Junior," Mist added. "We all take turns poking fun at each other over the comm. It's sort of a Delta Squadron tradition—we're all like family."

"I understand," Junior replied, trying to slow his breathing. _It's okay_, he told himself, trying to reassure his doubts. This was not the first time Junior found himself having an inexplicable panic attack. A year ago, Junior was sitting in a classroom on his home planet, trying to finish a math test when something similar occurred. While entering the answer to the final equation on his datapad, his hands began to shake, his breath staggered, and a few seconds later he was passed out on the floor with his teacher trying to revive him. Two hours after regaining consciousness, he was called into the school administrator's office and given devastating news: his father had been killed in a speeder crash at the same exact instant Junior had fainted.

The sting of the memory forced the youth to tighten his grip on his flight control stick. He angrily blinked away the hot translucent blur in his eyes, but the memory, like him, was far more stubborn than his tears. That day had been the worst day of his life. It had changed everything, including who he was and what he was going to become: he was no longer the only child in a middle-class family from the Republic Colonies and he was no longer able to look to his father for an example of how things were supposed to be and how things should be done. At seventeen, Junior found himself having to put aside the boy that loved playing the flight simulation holo-vid games, the unlikely replacement for the injured captain of his school's thrust-ball team that ultimately led it a to sector wide secondary-school Thrust-ball Championship and the annoying classmate who constantly badgered his teachers with questions. He had to reflect on the darker days of his secondary-school experience where he, as a Sophomore, stood-up to a Senior, twice his size, to defend a lowly Freshman. Unlike most teenagers, Junior had to cope with the sobering experience of identifying his own father's mangled and dismembered body, sparing his mother the bloodcurdling experience of seeing the man she had loved for more than thirty-seven years reduced to a few severed kilograms of cold meat chilling in a morgue.

When he graduated from the colony school, Junior's grades were good enough to land him an acceptance letter from the University of Coruscant. However, with his father gone and the family income cut in half, he had little choice but to accept the Republic Military's twenty-thousand-credit sign-on bonus and settle to for the Academy at Cardia. Now, a full semester later, he found himself flying amongst the Republic's best pilots, and there was no way he could let himself loose consciousness. _Not here, dammit! Not now!_

The T-3 droid lodged in the back of the starfighter made an even-toned buzz which translated on Delta Twelve's viewscreen as: ENGINES ARE FUNCTIONING ACCORDING TO NORMAL SPECIFICATIONS.

The message came right in time: it enabled the cadet to dismiss his fears and focus on something else. The worry was pushed off to the side by the question of why the droid was bothering him with such a useless piece of information. "That's good to know," he observed, casting an amazed look up at his cockpit canopy. The boy had never seen so many fighters in one location, not even in the old war holos he and his father used to watch together.

The droid chirped an irritated response: NOT GOOD. BY NORMAL, I MEAN MEDIOCRE: SUFFICIENT, BUT BELOW OPTIMAL.

"What?" the young pilot was stunned.

But the little droid did not waste any time as it gave another whistle: IF YOU LIKE, I CAN MAKE SOME MINOR ADJUSTMENTS THAT WILL INCREASE THE CAPACITY BY TWENTY PERCENT.

"That's sounds good as long as it won't interfere with our orders," Junior said.

The T-3 droid made an irritated chirp: YOU DO YOUR JOB AND I'LL DO MINE.

The young pilot made a face; this was the first time he had ever gotten back-talk or back-buzzing from a droid.

Once the squadron made its way through the myriad of metallic asteroids, leaving the _Resilient_ and six other identical Republic warships along with the rest of the Hammerhead carriers, Reanis came on again. "Okay group," his voice sounded gritty over the fighter's comm. "Here's the deal: the rival squadron we're up against is the Drexel Squadron of the Royal Onderonian Navy."

"Sir?" Delta Three asked over the comm. "All these asteroids are interfering with my targeting computer. I can't get a lock on any bandits, let alone tell the difference between a fighter and an asteroid."

"Copy that Delta Three," the Squadron Leader said. "That's part of fun. You're going to have to rely on your visual targeting skills—Remember: elimination is three direct laser shots on the same shield arc, a single hit if your shields are down, or a confirmed missile lock."

"Excuse me, Sir?" Delta Twelve asked. "But how are we supposed to get a missile lock without any targeting sensors?"

"Your missile's heat-based guidance system will still lock onto whatever you point it at, provided your aim is good. But I advise against it, Delta Twelve—it takes a few seconds to get a lock, compared to using your lasers which fire-off instantaneously.

"Yes, Sir," Junior said as he switched his weapons over to lasers.

"I've got bandits incoming at five-o'clock," Delta Eleven barked. "And they're coming in hot."

"I see 'em, Whirl," the Squadron Leader confirmed as he pushed down on his flight control stick, rolling his fighter to port. "Deltas, adjust your shields to your forward firing arc and follow me! Let's give these Drexel's a royal welcome!"

Junior's T-3 droid tweeted a wary alert.

"No, Teethree," Junior said. "I don't want you to fix the lasers or enable the missile launcher."

The droid whistled back a surprised question.

"Well, I don't think the Queen of Onderon would be too happy to find out that we really shot down one of her pilots, would she?" Junior said as one of the Drexels shot past him.

"Delta Twelve," Delta Eleven shouted. "I've got a blasted Drexel on my tail!"

"I hear yah," Junior said arching his fighter to intercept the Onderonian starfighter, that was exactly the same make and model as the rest of the Republic craft. As a precaution, he realigned his shields to cover both the front and back of his fighter. The improvement that the little T-3 droid had just finished making on the engines allowed for enough power to maintain his shields at maximum without lowering the fighter's speed. The youth pressed the red trigger on his flight control stick, firing off three red powered-down laser shots at leader of the Onderonian Squadron.

* * *

**A**board the _Apocalypse_ Mandalore eyed the sensor readouts on his bridge's tactical display board. 

"They've just launched, Mandalore," said the ghostly holo-projection of Cassus Fett, one of the warriors from his most trusted inner circle that had command of the _Praxis_. "The _Ascendant_ and _Scourge_ are cloaked and in position, along with the _Death-Dealer_."

"Is the _Obliterator's_ communication system slaved to your bridge?" Mandalore asked.

"Yes Mandalore," the other warrior replied. "Our crews are coordinated."

"Well done, Cassus," the Mandalorian commander looked over his shoulder and began shouting orders. "Activate the gravity well generator!"

"Yes, Mandalore," the warrior in charge of the bridge's engineering console said as her fingers called up protocol to activate the interdictor field. "Gravity well online!" she said pushing the ignition button.

"Confirm it!" Mandalore shouted at the bridge navigator.

"Right away, Mandalore," the helmsman replied, punching a micro-jump into the Dreadnaught's nav computer. "Engaging hyperdrive," he said pulling on the hyperdrive activation lever.

The ship remained stationary. A red warning indicator light flashed on the navigation console. "Hyperdrive is non-functional. The interdiction field is up!" the helmsman reported.

Mandalore turned to face Cassus once more. He did not have to admonish the warrior and tell him how important it was for their warships to be perfectly coordinated. Being the leader of one of the largest clans in Mandalore's army, Cassus had won dozens of battles relying on his warriors' ability to read each other's movements instead of using standard communications. "Once the _Ascendant_ and the _Scourge_ cut through the enemy line, you are to resume standard communications and await further orders. The _Death-Dealer_ is to back them up, but it must only decloak after the Republic line is broken. The _Praxis_ and the _Obliterator_ will be detectable once you begin the interference signal, their cloaking devices should be off and the extra power routed to the shields and gun turrets. Once the Republic vessels' shields are down, the gunners are to switch to ion laser cannons; I want as many intact ships captured as possible."

"And what about their fighters?" Cassus asked.

"They're of no concern," Mandalore replied. "The explosives we've planted along the third asteroid belt should take most of them out. Our basilisk riders will mop up whatever's left."

"Alright," the other warrior said.

"That's all, Cassus," Mandalore said dismissively. "Begin the assault."

* * *

**G**eldar Myn, also known as Knight One, was the Jedi leading the Knight Squadron, the team of Jedi pilots representing the Jedi Order at the GST. As a Force-trained pilot, he had the almost instinctive ability to sense danger, but the power itself had a great disadvantage: it provided its user with only a vague notion of danger, still requiring a judgment call on the nature and immediacy of the threat based upon the Jedi's knowledge of his surroundings. Deep within the asteroid field, where he was surrounded by asteroids on all sides, Geldar realized there were an infinite number of variable sources of danger. 

"What is it, Geldar?" Knight Two, his wingmate who was in the Aurek fighter twenty meters behind him asked.

"Everyone be on guard," Knight One ordered the rest of his squadron. "I sense a disturbance in the Force."

A second later, the asteroid in front of him exploded, incinerating him, six other Jedi starfighters right behind him, and three other fighters off the competing Republic squadron. The blast sent an immediate shock wave shattering the neighboring asteroids and sending thousands of sharp metal fragments spiraling into the remaining fighters, shredding them into confetti. Across the entire asteroid belt, dozens of detonations triggered simultaneously, consuming squadrons of unsuspecting starfighter pilots with ruthless efficiency.

* * *

**O**n the bridge of the _Vanguard_, Admiral Halan was in the middle of a HoloNet conversation with the Director of Republic Intelligence. He was cut off mid sentence when the signal faded into static. 

"What the hell just happened?" he glared angrily at the communications officer.

"Um. I don't know, Sir," the communications officer replied nervously. "The signal just cut out. There seems to be some sort of interference."

At the same time, the main sensor board lit up like the Coruscant night sky on Republic Day.

"Sir!" the Executive Officer called from his position behind the crewman monitoring the sensor console. "You'd better take a look at this!"

"What now?" the annoyed admiral turned around and began making his way over to the sensor monitoring station. He froze as soon has he got a clear view of the sensor board: two big red blips darted across the board and were on a direct intercept trajectory with the rest of the fleet. "Go to Code Red!" he shouted.

The ship's shrill attack alarms went off, summoning all hands to their battle stations and warning all non-essential personnel to go to their quarters.

* * *

**T**he small transport shuttle carrying the vice-chancellor and the two Jedi masters had just barely touched down in the _Vanguard's_ secondary hangar when the explosions began. The loss of the twelve Jedi pilots, along with many other lives, sent ripples through the Force that caused the two robed Jedi to immediately jump out of their seats. 

Startled by his companions' change in demeanor, Antares also rose from his chair. "What is it?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

Vrook almost tore off his seat restraints. The Jedi Master charged half-way down the boarding ramp. "The fleet's under attack!" he looked at the other Jedi Master, as he felt more lives being extinguished like candles in a rainstorm.

Upon hearing him, the armored Senatorial Guards immediately reacted by gathering themselves closer to the vice-chancellor.

The other Jedi Master had just barely caught up with his companion when they were both met by a squad of Republic soldiers.

"Master Jedi," the squad leader said. "The Admiral wants both of you on the bridge."

Edan threw a sideways look as Antares sulked out the shuttle. "We should get the vice-chancellor to his quarters," he quietly said to Vrook.

"You should do nothing of the kind!" Antares snapped as he gave one of the Senatorial Guards, that tried to shove him along, a look that made the abyss of space seem warm. "You two are going to the bridge, and I'm going with you."

Vrook sighed. He and Edan did not have the option of refusing. "Alright, fine," he said. "Let's get going."

* * *

**T**wo minutes later, the main entrance doors to the _Vanguard's_ bridge slid open making way for the vice-chancellor, two Jedi, four Senatorial Guards, and an entourage of Republic soldiers. 

Admiral Halan looked up from the sensor monitoring board and immediately frowned. "Your Honour," he managed a strained look of calm. "For your own good, it would be best if you were not on the bridge right now."

"And where else would you suggest I be, Admiral?" Antares demanded.

The admiral decided not to answer, technically, he did not have the authority to order Antares off the bridge, but he sure wanted to. "We just confirmed a hostile fleet of ships emerging next to the third asteroid belt."

"How do you know they're hostile?" the vice-chancellor asked suspiciously.

"Because they're jamming our transmissions!" the communications officer answered him. "Our sensors picked them up because their inference signal gave away their position."

The beeping noise of one of the ship's overhead communicators was heard in the background as an officer immediately rushed to get it. The same officer calmly walked up to the admiral who now stood right across from the resolute vice-chancellor. "Sir," since he was not quite sure who to address first, he made eye contact with both the Antares and Halan. "The aft gunnery crews just confirmed seeing multiple detonations in and around the third asteroid belt as well as turbolaser fire."

Halan shook his head. _This is bad. This is very, very bad_. He turned to the communications officer. "Has there been any attempt by the rest of the fleet to reach us?"

"None, Sir," the officer answered. "It looks like the jamming field includes all radio and hyper-wave transmissions."

"So there's no way to send a distress signal?" the realization hit Antares like a flaming meteorite.

"And no way for our fighters to communicate with one another, except by binary laser signal," Halan said sourly. "And you can guess how well that works in an asteroid belt. We can't even put together a coordinated response. Every ship is on its own."

"Wait a minute," Vrook joined in. "Why have the rest of the ships engaged when they can't even communicate? Why haven't they jumped to hyperspace? Why are we even still here?"

"We can't go to hyperspace because we're in a gravity well that's preventing us from making the jump to lightspeed," the admiral countered with growing frustration.

"But how could that be?" Vrook asked. "How did we get here then?"

"You don't understand," the Executive Officer responded. "It's not a naturally occurring gravitational field. Something or someone is causing it."

"An interdiction field generator?" the older looking Jedi Master narrowed his eyes circumspectly. "I thought they didn't exist."

"That's not exactly accurate, Master Vrook," Antares answered after a dreadful realization came over him. "The Republic started experimenting with them about twenty years ago. But the only proto-type was lost when the Sith overran the shipyards at Foerost."

"Impossible!" Admiral Halan snapped. "You're saying that we had that technology twenty years ago and lost it? And now we're trapped because someone's using our own weapons against us?"

"It's the only logical explanation," the vice-chancellor replied.

Meanwhile, Edan closed his eyes, reaching out with the Force and trying to assess the status of the situation. "The Jedi pilots are gone," he said quietly. "And we're losing pilots fast." There was no emotion in his voice, only quiet acceptance.

"See if you can use your battle meditation to alter the tide of the battle," Vrook suggested.

The Deralian Jedi Master gripped the bridge railing steadying himself; his eyes were shut tightly with concentration. "There are too many opponents, and the detonations in the asteroid field are the result of explosives that have been intentionally placed there. Our attackers planned this ambush," his voice strained as he focused harder and harder on the area of the third asteroid belt. "I cannot alter the tide; the best I can do is to slow the current."

At the same time, no one noticed that the vice-chancellor had turned extremely pale and his breaths had become shallow.

"What are they?" Halan demanded with his eyes fixed on the Jedi Master.

A bead of sweat dribbled between Edan's closed eyes and down into bottom portion of his headdress that covered the rest of his face. "Mandalorians," he said quietly as if he was under terrible strain; his breaths became increasingly labored. "I'm afraid the situation is very bad," he continued dreadfully. "Our fighters still have their weapons systems tuned down for the tournament. They're flying targets."

"How?" Antares demanded frantically as he suddenly fell over. He was caught by one of his blue-armored Senatorial Guards who remained hovering over him the entire time.

Vrook looked curiously at the wobbly vice-chancellor. He kept getting the most peculiar sensation from him in the Force, as if Antares was not really there. "Is he alright?"

The Senatorial Guard, leaning over Antares, looked up at Vrook and cast a worried expression at Edan, who was clenching the railing of the bridge hard enough that his knuckles were white. "Yes," the guard said finally. "At least he should be. He gets this way often when he has a lot to deal with."

"I'm fine," the tall man said softly as he leaned heavily on the Senatorial Guard's arm. "I'm surprised, Master Vrook, at your concern for my welfare. Perhaps in the last couple of hours you've changed your mind and actually started liking politicians."

Vrook did not respond, obviously the vice-chancellor was still well enough to make snide remarks.

"Take him to the medical bay," the Executive Officer told the Senatorial Guards.

"No!" Antares objected loudly as his guards walked him over to one of the empty crew chairs. "I'll be fine, I just need to sit down that's all." He looked at the Admiral and tried to change the subject. "Isn't every one of those fighters equipped with an astromech droid? All they need to do is to get their droids to recalibrate the lasers and missile launchers."

The Admiral shook his head. "You don't understand, Your Honour, those fighters are equipped with standard issue T-1 astromech droids, and that model has a limited list of protocols. Their central processing unit is not sophisticated enough to reprogram the weapon operations algorithms on those fighters."

"Why haven't they been equipped with T-2 droid's, or with T-1 models that have upgraded processing cores?" Vrook asked.

"They would have," the Admiral scowled at the older-looking Jedi Master and then at Antares. "But the Senate's military budget cuts along with the ridiculous amount of credits spent on that blasted Jedi Temple made those modifications impossible! So Fleet Command decided to put those upgrades off for another year!"

Vrook did not know what to say.

* * *

**I**n the middle of the third asteroid field, Junior was fighting a loosing battle with his flight control stick, trying to recover his starfighter out of the dizzying tail spin he had been thrown into when an asteroid exploded a hundred meters away from his craft. As his starfighter continued to spin, the acceleration force was pushing the young pilot harder and harder into the back of his cockpit chair. He lost all peripheral vision and everything went black and white while he stared helplessly at the spinning needle of the cockpit's g-force indicator whose dial had become a fan. He could no longer see the lower half of his body, nor that his flight suit had swollen around his abdomen, trying to keep his circulation going. He had read about acceleration blackout not three weeks ago in his introductory flight texts. His field of vision would continue to shrink as his heart could no longer pump oxygenated blood to his brain hard enough to counteract the force of the spin. And then the boy knew he was going to die. 

_I'm dead_, he thought with peaceful resignation. _Funny, I never thought it would be like this_. And then with the last shred of consciousness he thought about all the things he still had not yet experienced in his young life: like getting the guts to ask a girl out on a real date, not to mention getting a kissed by a woman other than his mother. _Mom!_ The picture of his mother, back on Telos, wearing the same empty expression of anguish she wore the day his father died flashed, into his mind. She had never been the same woman after that day. How much worse would she take news that her son and only child was dead like her husband? The thought was like a thousand-volt shock going through his body. _Who's going to take care of her?_

"_Dammit! I can't die!_" the boy screamed at the top lungs as he lunged at the flight control stick with a strength that was beyond his own. "_Fly you piece of garbage! Fly you over-inflated, three-hundred-thousand credit bucket of_"—as if showing its indignation for his insults, the tortured spacecraft finally wobbled out the spin and he regained control.

Junior stared in disbelief at his cockpit viewscreen, seeing the words "YOU'RE WELCOME" glowing at him.

"Teethree?" he asked ecstatically. "You did that?"

The droid chirped modestly. NOT ALL OF IT. SOMETHING HAPPENED, I MY SENSORS ARE STILL TRYING TO PROCESS EXACTLY WHAT.

But Junior did not care what had happened. He was just thankful that he was still alive as he maneuvered his fighter upwards, perpendicular to the asteroid belt.

Teethree whistled reporting that two remaining fighters from his squadron, Delta Ten and Delta Eleven, were right behind.

Just then, out of the corner of his eye he saw green laser fire streak past the starboard side of his fighter. "What in space!" he yelled as jerked the control stick as far left as it could go, sending the arrow-shaped craft into tight port spin. He stomped on his fighter's rudder control pedal, coming behind whatever had fired at him. "Whirl?" he yelled through his helmet communicator to Delta Eleven. "Did you see that?" Red was the color of all standard Republic laser cannons, including the larger ones on the big capital ships. No one had green lasers.

The little droid screeched nervously: THEY CANNOT HEAR YOU! THERE IS INTERFERENCE ON ALL FREQUENCIES.

Junior's eyes bulged as he stared out through his cockpit canopy. _No fracking way!_ He had seen a picture of the same exact thing in his secondary-school history text not six months earlier. Except now he was not in a classroom; he was half a galaxy away from his home planet of Telos. _Where the hell did the Navy dig up a basilisk droid? That thing must be over twenty years old!_

The basilisk's wings, which doubled as maneuvering flaps, opened. It did a full frontal inversion and began firing right at him.

The shield indicator alarm squealed, catching Junior off guard. "Holy Fracking Smoke! Those cannons are at full power!" he quickly cycled the shields with one hand and pushed down hard on his flight control stick with the other, narrowly dodging out of the path of the Mandalorian warmount.

"Teethree!" Junior yelled. "I need those weapons back up now!"

The droid gave an affirmative chirp: I WAS ALREADY WORKING ON IT WHEN YOU TOLD ME NOT TO. WEAPONS SHOULD BE FULLY OPERATIONAL IN ONE MINUTE.

"In one minute, we're both going be space dust!" Junior shouted.

The droid made a nervous sputter: I'M WORKING ON IT AS FAST AS MY CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT WILL ALLOW.

* * *

**A**board the _Resilient_, between the second and third asteroid belts, the situation was getting more and more desperate. Line Captain Karath had ordered the activation of the Republic cruiser's auxiliary laser emitter to broadcast a message to the five-hundred and four Aurek fighters in the third asteroid belt who, to the best of his knowledge, were defenseless against the endless waves of basilisks that just kept coming. The message was simple: RETURN TO YOUR LAUNCH BAYS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. 

Karath had been a career soldier for over thirty years and had no problem recognizing the Mandalorian basilisks from the last time he had seen them, twenty years earlier. Through an extremely obvious tactical maneuver, he managed to get the other twelve capital ships to line up parallel to one another, creating a two-kilometer wide kill zone of turbolaser fire. With half of _Resilient's_ hull covered by the neighboring Republic cruiser's turbolasers, he ordered the crew to readjust the cruiser's shields to cover only the exposed portions of the ship. That was when the maneuver back-fired: two more Dreadnaughts appeared out of nowhere, dove right into the kill zone and unleashed a blue flurry of proton torpedoes directly on to the exposed hull of several of the Republic warships. Two of the smaller Republic carriers already had multiple hull breaches with plasma and debris spilling out into the vacuum of space. On of the Republic cruiser's suffered a major explosion as the pilot of an Aurek fighter lost control and plowed into its hull.

Although the larger ships had trouble communicating, as soon as the fight had started, the pilots, through the help of their astromech droids, were able to maintain limited communications through laser signals.

Junior's droid had successfully managed to recalibrate his fighter's weapons. "Down you go!" the young pilot shouted at the enemy craft as he picked off two basilisks off Delta Eleven's tail before Teethree got a signal from the other fighter's T-1 droid.

DELTA LEADER IS GONE. EIGHT OTHERS ARE MISSING.

The realization that the Squadron Leader was down made Junior tighten his grip on his control stick. At first, the fight appeared to him like it was straight out of the holo-vid console games he used to play for hours and hours on end. But as he swung his fighter back and forth trying to evade enemy after enemy, seeing bodies spewing out of the crippled cruisers, he could not wait for the deadly game he was playing to be over. "Teethree," he gritting his teeth while maneuvering his craft along side Delta Eleven's fighter. "Tell Whirlwind and Mist to head for the _Resilient_. Tell them there's no point in flying if they can't defend themselves. I'll cover them."

The little droid buzzed affirmatively.

An immediate response came back through Junior's cockpit screen.

ACKNOWLEDGED, JUNIOR. PLEASE KEEP THOSE BUZZARDS OFF MY TAIL AS I HEAD OUT.

But Mist was not very happy at all. NO WAY, JUNIOR, YOU'RE DEAD WITHOUT A WINGMATE. I'M COVERING YOU.

"That damned stubborn woman!" Junior swore.

Mist looked down at her viewscreen as her T-1 droid buzzed a message from Junior's droid: NO GOOD. YOU CAN'T HIT ANYTHING. GET YOUR TAIL INTO THE FRACKING HANGAR!

Looking at her console, Mist pouted knowing that Junior was right. She did not like to leave anyone behind, especially a new cadet.

Junior looked down at his view screen. ALRIGHT JUNIOR. I'LL DO WHAT YOU ASK. BUT I'LL BE BACK UP SOON, AND WHEN I DO, I'LL BE THE ONE GIVING THE ORDERS!

With most of the squadron gone, Mist was now the most senior-ranking officer.

Three Aurek fighters exited the asteroid field and approached the aft portion of the _Resilient_, dodging the exchange of fire between its turbolaser battery fires and those of four Mandalorian Dreadnaughts. As soon as Delta Ten and Eleven cleared the hangar, Delta Twelve pulled up, found another Republic fighter and did the same thing over and over again, until the cruiser's landing bay was up to its full capacity of thirty-six fighters.

* * *

**A**s soon as Mist's fighter touched down in _Resilent's_ hangar and her flight canopy was open, she jumped out of her cockpit and started hounding the repair crew to get her Aurek fighter's weapons back up and running. 

"We're working as fast as we can, Lieutenant Nayland," the deck crewman vainly tried to reassure her.

"That's not good enough!" she angrily screamed back at the crewman. "The last member of my squadron is out there without a wingmate! I need to be in the air fast. That means yesterday!"

"But, Sir," the crewman protested as the young woman grabbed him by his arm and began dragging him over to her starfighter. Seeing the angry expression in her green eyes, the crewman quickly corrected himself. "I mean Madam—I mean--."

"--You can call me whatever you like," she growled. "As long as you get those weapons working."

"But—but Line Captain Karath said we're not supposed to let any fighters out of the hangar until they're all fixed," the crewman protested.

Lieutenant Megan Nayland, whose full call sign was Mistress, was a tall and imposing woman; she was taller than the deck crewman and infinitely angrier. She knew that Saul Karath, the Line Captain, and in her lowly opinion misogynist extraordinaire, would have liked nothing better than to court-marshal the only remaining female pilot under his command. But she also knew that he and the rest of the sexist Gamorreans on the bridge would have to survive the encounter before they could do anything to her.

"Now listen to me you—you," her green eyes flashed like laser fire as she tried to come up with the worst insult in her vocabulary. "You man-You! You get your sorry hide working on that fighter, or I'll drag your useless mangy-wookie ass to the airlock and space you myself!" Megan could hardly believe her own words, but her threat was obviously harsh enough to scare the crewman into working.

Fifteen minutes later, Megan cursed under her breath as she began climbing back into the cockpit of her singed starfighter.

"Mist, wait!" Whirlwind, the Delta Squadron's remaining pilot grabbed the back of her ankle as she climbed up the ladder.

"Whirl," the young woman's voice was like ice. "Unless you don't plan on having any children, I suggest you let go of my leg."

The pilot released his grip on her ankle and watched as she slipped back into her pilot's chair and latched her seat restraints. "There are hundreds of basilisks out there!" he insisted.

"Yes," she said mechanically. "And an eighteen year-old kid." Megan had a younger sister, about Junior's age, back on Corellia. The thought of loosing her, or of anyone else dying that young made her mad enough to cuss out Admiral Halan and every other military mucky-muck who had placed the young cadet in harm's way.

"What chance can you possibly have of surviving?" her squadron mate asked.

"The same chance, Junior has—the same chance we all have!" the Megan yelled as her cockpit canopy came down.

She powered up the repulsors and began the ignition sequence for the fighter's engines. When she lifted off the deck, the hangar crew had no choice but to let her pass.

* * *

**A**s the explosions continued to rattle the _Resilient's_ hull, a message came up to the bridge from the hangar bay's senior operations officer. The officer's voice came through the static: "When are we going to make the jump to hyperspace? We're loaded with a full deck down here!" 

The bridge's communications officer was down: the comm console had overloaded and exploded in his face. A young ensign had been called in to replace him. The youth looked up quizzically at the middle-aged Line Captain.

"Tell him we can't make the jump to lightspeed!" Karath barked annoyingly. "Tell him to get the lasers of every single one of those blasted fighters operational. I need those birds in the air before we get blasted into oblivion!"

"But, Sir!" the young ensign countered. "He says it will take at least twenty minutes to recalibrate the weapons on each of those fighters!"

Karath muttered something under his breath as he snatched the communicator from the ensign's shaking hands and adjusted the controls to the ship's primary overhead frequency. "Now hear this!" his voice hissed over every last receiver onboard. "This is Saul Karath speaking. I want every single crewman who can hold a hydrospanner in the hangar bay helping to get the weapons on the starfighters operational!"

* * *

**O**n the _Apocalypse_, Mandalore stood waiting for the right time to spring his trap on the unsuspecting Republic Dreadnaught. Two dozen of his best armored warriors stood before him waiting for instructions. "Most of you know, as soon as the _Ascendant_ and _Scourge_ have succeeded in breaking the Republic line, the _Praxis_ and the _Obliterator_ will cut the interference signals. At such time, Canderous' wing of basilisks will emerge from its position in the first asteroid belt and attack that Dreadnaught," he said gesturing to the large ship in view of the window. "Once their shields are down, your transports are to dock with the Dreadnaught. There has to be a high-ranking Republic official on that ship. Your orders are to take over the ship, find him, and bring him back alive." 

"We understand, Mandalore," the yellow armored warrior, at the head of the line, said.

"Remember," Mandalore added. "If possible I want that ship as well. We can always use another Dreadnaught."

"Yes, Mandalore," the warrior replied.

"Good," he added. "You are dismissed to your transport crews."

* * *

**H**undreds of basilisks descended on the remaining weaponless Republic starfighters like a swarm of ravenous piranha beetles. The single fighter pilot shooting back continued playing a deadly game of tag with the larger and more maneuverable basilisks, as he tried to protect what fighters flew out from the asteroid belt back to their hangars. 

Teethree squealed a high-pitched warning.

"I see 'em!" Junior shouted, moving his flight control stick around and taking his fighter into a tight roll, dodging enemy fire. The alarm indicating imminent shield failure blared right in his ears. He kept weaving his fighter around in a loop, knowing that if he stopped moving, he was dead. _Great_, he thought to himself, _at least I'm not dead yet_. For the past hour, Junior was on guard trying to cover the retreating fighters that had no weapons. Without a wingmate watching his tail, in case an enemy basilisk got too close, the youth had to resort flying close to the hulls of the larger Republic ships, letting their turbolaser cannons take out whatever was chasing him. This strategy worked well as long as his shields were up, but without shields, he had very few options. He reached over and flipped the switch to shut off his lasers, redirecting the extra power back to the engines and lengthening the distance between his fighter, which had already been scorched from a couple of close calls.

The basilisk droids were still right behind him with a steady stream of green laser fire.

Just then, he saw red laser fire streak along with the green right before the basilisk behind him exploded. Another Aurek fighter rose out of the debris like a spiced-up hawk-bat with its tail on fire. He knew right away who the other pilot was: Mist had a reputation among the rest of the squadron for showing up unexpectedly.

MIST, YOU MADE IT! The message came through Megan's view screen.

OF COURSE. WHY SHOULD YOU GET ALL THE KILLS?

Junior managed a thin smile as he read the message. There were plenty of targets for the both of them.

* * *

**O**ut of all the ships in the Mandalorian war arsenal, the basilisk warmount was Canderous' favorite ride. His love for his basilisk had nothing to do with the droid's heavy shielding as he thought that the addition of shields made hunting one's prey far too cushy. He could do without the nose-cluster shockwave generator rods that fired high-energy plasma bursts easily piercing the hull of all but the most heavily armored capital warships like a bullet going through cheesecloth. The pulse-wave cannons, that could disrupt a lighter vehicle's navigation rudders, and the two shatter-missile launch tubes, each with a payload or no less than five shatter-missiles, were still superfluous additions as far as he was concerned. The one single thing that made the relationship between a Mandalorian and his warmount so unique, compared to any starfighter pilot trudging along in the belly of an unfeeling machine, was the simple fact that a Mandalorian riding his warmount into battle was literally riding on his best friend. 

Basilisk droids were more than plain war machines. They were intelligent, each possessing a will and mind of its own; they were so intelligent that they made the mighty warbeast of Onderon, known as the Drexel, look like a rabid mongrel chasing its tail. To earn the right to wear the Mandalorian armor, a young warrior sentient upon recommendation of their clan leader, would be placed in a holding pen with a basilisk warmount. The task was to bond with the droid. Mounting a basilisk by jumping on its back was simple, but remaining on long enough for the droid to accept and form an emotional bond, without getting killed or maimed, was heroic. Canderous was the youngest warrior since Mandalore to have mastered a basilisk droid. If forced to choose between saving his wife and saving his basilisk, Canderous would unflinchingly choose the basilisk in a heartbeat. A basilisk droid would happily sacrifice itself for its rider; Canderous was not so sure he could say the same thing about his wife.

Canderous felt the droid moving beneath him, adjusting and testing its wing-flaps as it perched on its two grappling arms, that doubled as landing gears, in a crater of one of the larger asteroids in the first asteroid belt about twenty kilometers away from where the Republic Dreadnaught floated dangerously close to the lurking Mandalorian command ship. His objective was obvious: once the jamming signal was down, he and the fifty other basilisk riders, under his command, were to launch a full scale attack on one side of the Republic Dreadnaught while the _Apocalypse_ attacked from the opposite side. Once the ship's shields were down, armored transports of Mandalorian warriors would board the ship and take it over.

"Everything alright, Claws?" Canderous asked the droid.

The droid let put an affirmative metallic grunt. Basilisks had their own language that sounded like very much like the noises of an organic animal. There was no need to program them with the ability to speak as each droid was attuned to its rider's emotions and could clearly discern his intentions. In combat, a basilisk and its rider worked as one.

"I know," Canderous told the droid sympathetically. "All this waiting giving is me the urge to kill something too."

The droid made a noise that sounded like a question.

"You know I can't do that. I have to wait for the signal to come up again," the red-armored Mandalorian warrior replied. "Besides, who's going to lead the others?"

The droid let out what sounded like metallic raspberry, making its rider chuckle.

"Everything will happen in its own time," Canderous told the droid affectionately. To the average sentient, Mandalorians would forever be known as cold-blooded merciless killers, but a few open-minded individuals could see that Mandalorians actually had a code of honor. Dying in battle in such a way that one was remembered by his fellow warriors was the greatest honor any Mandalorian could achieve and second to that, was facing a worthy enemy. The threat of a mortal enemy always kept a Mandalorian warrior on his guard, pushing him to constantly improve. Canderous had ridden the same basilisk for almost twenty standard years. It was the basilisk he had bonded with just before his first battle where, as teenager, he plummeted down an eighty-kilometer free fall to the surface of a hostile world. He had been so young and naïve, yet the basilisk droid which he had affectionately named Claws, after the fearsome Mandalorian iron talons on the droid's two grappling arms, knew exactly what to do. The droid had saved his life on numerous occasions, like many other basilisk droids had done for their riders. He had little trouble thinking of the droid as an independent, sentient being he was deeply attached to, even if it was a machine. To a Mandalorian Crusader, honor and glory in battle was not as simple as mindlessly slaughtering one's opponent. Honor came out of facing the right enemy at the right place at the right time in the right way. Honor was something that the basilisk did not understand, all it cared for was its rider and nothing more. Honor was what kept Canderous from launching himself on his droid in a direct attack on the Republic vessel he saw in the distance without orders. Canderous mentally recited the ancient code from what his people called _The Canons of Honor_, the ethical tradition passed down for generations that every single Mandalorian warrior had to embrace: _Strength is life, for the strong have the right to rule. Honor is life, for with no honor one may as well be dead. Death is life, one should die as they have lived_.

He immediately heard his helmet communicator crackle on. "Canderous?" the voice on the other end was totally familiar.

"Yes, Mandalore?" the fully armored Mandalorian warrior responded.

"Begin the charge," the Mandalorian Commander ordered.

"Acknowledged," a smile broke on Canderous' face. He unsheathed his sword and gave the attack signal. "The Republic line is broken!—Charge!"

Like angry fire-crawlers erupting from their hive, the swarm of basilisk riders rose out of the asteroid, set upon devouring its prey.

* * *

**A** message popped up on Junior's viewscreen indicating that communications had been reestablished. 

"The comm's back on!" Megan's voice came over Junior's comm speaker loud and clear. The two fighter pilots had found two more Aurek fighters that had limped out of the third asteroid field.

The cadet switched his comm signal to the fleet's primary channel. "This is Delta Twelve reporting in, does anyone copy?"

"Hey! Who said you could go ahead of me?" Megan complained on her squadron's local frequency; she then switched to the main frequency. "This is Delta Ten, standing by," she changed the tone of her voice to sound completely unaffected.

The Junior's dashboard buzzed to life. "Copy that Delta Ten and Twelve," the officer, now in charge of the starfighter dispatch aboard the _Resilient_, replied. "Please stand by."

"Alright," Junior answered. He turned his fighter around one of the badly damaged Corellian cruisers. His sensors still registered life signs on board, but all the ship's systems, with the exception of life support, were out.

"As if we could go anywhere," Megan observed with annoyance to Junior on the squadron frequency; she eyed the two Republic fighters they were both covering.

"It doesn't look good," the voice of one the other pilots came over the comm as he flew by the damaged ship.

"Acknowledged Theta Six," Megan replied grimly. "We're not letting you land in there. That ship looks like it's about to blow."

Junior cycled through the rest of the sensor readings that, by now, had come online again. Five Corellian warcruisers had critical damage to their hull. The lighter Hammerhead Carriers were all but destroyed. "What about the _Defender_?" he asked.

"That's not our ship," the other fighter pilot replied.

"It doesn't look like you have much of a choice, Zeta Three," the Megan added. "The rest of the ships look barely operational." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw several enemy boarding transports coming in. "Sithspawn! They're going to board!"

Junior sighed. "We can't very well do two things at the same time, Mist."

"You're right," Megan replied, cooling her temper. With the Republic cruiser's shields down, and its computer systems barely operational, the vessel's marine contingent now had to deal with the hopeless task of defending it. In the meantime, they still had to look after the other pilots.

"Mist?" Junior ask being careful not to alert the other pilots. "My sensors say that the only two ships that are operational are the _Resilient_ and the _Defender_, those hangars can only hold three squadrons at a time, that's thirty six fighters, but there are at least a hundred of us left in the air. What happens when there's no more room?"

Megan tried to banish a chilling thought. _There probably won't be any more fighters left by the time the second hangar is full . . ._ "I'm not going to worry about that, Junior," she coolly. "I'm going to concentrate on what I'm doing right now, because, right now, that's all I can do." As she said this, she shot down another basilisk that locked in on her targeting computer. "That's the only thing any of us can do."

* * *

**M**eanwhile the _Resilient's_ bridge crew, with the interference signal down, scrambled in different directions. Karath had divided the crew into two teams: the first team was to resume communications with the rest of the fleet, the second team was to work on the sensor data and detail the exact status of the situation. "Commander!" he shouted to the uneasy-looking Commander who was in charge of the sensor team. "I need those statistics now!" 

"Um, Sir," the Commander explained nervously. "We're trying to double-check them to see if they're accurate."

Karath briskly walked up to the sensor display board, brushing the younger officer aside.

His face did not change as he surveyed the data for himself. "No, they're accurate," he said angrily. "I don't need to be buttered up to be told the situation is bad. Next time you see that we've lost over three-quarters of our fighters, Commander, just tell me flat out and don't waste my time!" He spun around and barked at the communications crew. "Get me the _Vanguard_!" his voice roared across the bridge. "_Now!_"

* * *

**O**n the _Vanguard_ the Admiral gazed with disbelief as the readouts of what was left of his fleet came in. The six lighter Hammerhead troop carriers were gone and two of the larger war cruisers; three cruisers were suffering from massive system failures, and the two remaining ships, the _Resilient_ and the _Defender_, had their shields at fifty percent. The numbers from the Republic fighter squadrons were even more staggering: eighty percent of their fighters did not register on any sensor scan. This meant that out of roughly five-hundred fighters that had been deployed for the tournament, about a hundred were left. 

"The readouts from the fighters are inaccurate," Saul Karath's voice crackled over the comm and was barely audible over another explosion on his end. He had switched visual communications off to preserve power and siphon it to the warship's failing shields. "I've got an full hangar of Aurek fighters, ready to deploy. I'm waiting for the flight deck crew to enable the weapons on the last five birds, and I'll release them onto the Dreadnaught projecting the gravity well."

"Have you figured out which of those Dreadnaughts is projecting the gravity well yet?" Halan asked.

"It has to be one of the four attacking our line," Karath replied.

Antares got up from where he was sitting. "Just a moment, Admiral," he interrupted the conversation. "Do you either of you know exactly what a Dreadnaught with an interdictor engine-mount looks like?"

The Admiral shook his head.

"I must confess. I don't believe I've ever seen one," Karath replied.

"I take it you know," Vrook said.

"Yes," Antares replied. "And I can do better than that: I can give you a precise schematic—including a technical readout, if you will allow me to contact my droid."

"Contact your droid?" Halan asked. "Where is it?"

"I let one of the pilots from the Delta Squadron borrow it," Antares replied.

"You did what?" Vrook looked at the vice-chancellor incredulously. "Your telling me that your droid, that has the only exact description of what we're looking for, is somewhere out in that asteroid field being shot at with the rest of our fighters?"

"Yes," the other man replied like what he had done was the most natural thing in the universe. "You were present when I allowed the logistics crewman to requisition it. How was I supposed to know we were going to get attacked?"

"Your Honour," Karath asked. "Do you know which pilot from the Delta Squadron received your droid? Because my ships hangar crew reported only two members of the Delta Squadron landing, we've lost all contact with the rest. It was very likely they were shot or destroyed in the detonations." As he said this, a crewman walked up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and whispered a message regarding the pilot who had activated the weapons on his starfighter and rescued three dozen starfighters.

Upon hearing the news, Karath came back on: "Um, I just received word from the pilot dispatcher that the pilot whom my hangar crew confirmed getting his weapons systems working in the air and guided back the fighters now in my hangar, is from the Delta Squadron. It also appears that one of the other pilot's off the Delta Squadron took off, after landing in the hangar, and joined him."

As he clutched the bridge railing Edan opened his eyes again, "The droid's presence must explain how he was able to bring his weapons back online."

"Patch both of them through then," Antares replied.

"Right away," the Line Captain said.

"Delta Twelve?" Halan asked over the comm. "Do you read me?"

An older man's voice immediately sounded over Junior's comm unit; he automatically assumed that it was a superior officer. "Loud and clear, Sir."

The Admiral frowned, the voice on the other end sounded unusually young for a pilot. "What's your ID number?" he asked.

"Um, I don't have one," Junior replied. "I wasn't given one."

"Nonsense! Every commissioned officer has an identification number," the voice with annoyance.

"Excuse me, Sir," a young woman's voice came over the _Vanguard's_ comm. "What he says is true: Delta Twelve did not receive an ID number, or a tag bracelet, or proper flight school training for that matter. It was Fleet Command's decision to put him in this tournament without graduating—he can't be blamed for not knowing information he wasn't given."

"And who are you?" the Admiral asked.

"Lieutenant Megan Nayland, Sir," the Megan replied. "ID number 169063-J-202764811, Sir"

Line Captain Karath made a face. _Oh no. Not her_. Megan Nayland was one of those hard-nosed feminists he deplored. Everyone knew that woman's place was not on a warship, and definitely not in a cockpit. Of course, she and many women like her could not take the hint that they were not welcome. She was, in his opinion, a first class troublemaker.

The Admiral sighed. He realized Delta Twelve had to be the cadet from the Cardian Military Academy. The fact that he had survived clearly displayed his potential; that he saved so many pilots, was a Force-given miracle. "What's your name, son?"

"Carth Onasi, Sir," the boy replied. "Cadet: freshman year."

All the bridge crews of the _Vanguard_, the _Resilient_, and the _Defender_ became very quiet. A single cadet had saved almost an entire wing of starfighters. The realization dawned on the Admiral as he was speaking, "Um Cadet Onasi, this is Admiral Halan, do you have a T-3 model droid with you?"

Megan's heart sunk upon hearing Halan's words. _Wonderful. I just smart-mouthed an Admiral_, she thought to herself. _Good job, Meg. So much for any hope of advancement_.

"Yes, Sir," the cadet responded.

"It's very important you get us the information that's within that droid," the Admiral continued.

"What?" Carth looked back at Teethree who was cheerfully lodged in the back of the fighter. "Teethree, what is he talking about?"

"That droid has the readouts for an experimental gravity well generator mounted to a Dreadnaught," the Admiral said frantically. "We need to you transmit them to the _Resilient_."

As Halan finished his sentence, the droid already began the transmission. Carth looked at his viewscreen as he steadied his craft, dodging out of the path of another basilisk.

"Is that why the ships haven't jumped to lightspeed?" the boy questioned.

"Yes," the Admiral replied.

Carth looked down as the bar across his screen indicated that the transfer was complete.

"Okay, Sir. My fighter's comm says that the data's uploaded—the transmission is complete."

"What are your orders, Admiral?" Megan asked.

"Well, having someone in the air to guide the rest of the fighters in has made a significant difference," the Admiral shot back. "You are to carry on until further instructions are given."

The Admiral was about to signoff when Carth interjected. "Admiral, wait!" he said looking at the schematic of a large semi-ovular ship with a huge dome at the top superstructure, near its bow. "Is one of those Dreadnaughts out there supposed to have a gravity field projector? Cause I've flown around four of them already. I've gotten close enough to see 'em. And none of them resembled anything close to what this readout's describing."

"Are you certain?" the Admiral asked as he heard blasts in the background.

"I'm positive," Carth replied as he continued rolling his fighter back and forth trying to evade a particularly annoying basilisk droid and its very persistent rider. "There's one more thing, Sir."

"And what's that?"

Karath listened carefully on the other end of the transmission.

"My sensors now read ninety-seven Republic fighters out there, and they're dropping like flies. The only other ship left flying is the _Defender_, but her hangar's getting filled fast, Sir. What are we supposed to do?"

The Line Captain interjected. "Copy that, Cadet Onasi. We have the readout you transmitted and are making the final preparations for launching the fighters you guided back to us."

"Excuse me, Sir?" Carth could not believe what he heard, launching the fighters back into the battle would be a death sentence. "What target are we attacking?"

"The Dreadnaught whose readout you gave us," the Line Captain replied.

"But, Sir," the boy protested. "As I just told the Admiral, there isn't a single Dreadnaught out there like that."

As Carth spoke, an officer monitoring the sensors called the Line Captain back over to the sensor board.

"Sir," the officer said. "We just got another Dreadnaught appearing four kilometers above the third asteroid field on an intercept course."

"That must be it!" Karath told his officer. "Upload these coordinates along with that Dreadnaught's specifications to the hangar's mainframe." He quickly told the communications officer to transmit his message over the fighter dispatch frequency. "This is Karath," he said as, down in the hangar bay, thirty-five fighter pilots listened. "All fighters are to proceed to sector fifteen, grid nine seven twelve per flight instructions uploaded to your astromech droids."

Hearing Karath's orders over the comm, Carth watched almost three squadrons emptying out of the Resilient's hangar as yet another basilisk began stalking him from behind.

"I'm on him, Junior!" Megan yelled as she dove her fighter coming back around the basilisk and sending a volley of laser fire that knocked the rider off his warmount.

Teethree let out a questioning whistle.

"Captain? Do you read me?" Carth asked over the comm.

"He's signed off, Junior," Megan pointed out warily as she leveled her craft behind Carth's fighter. "He doesn't care about you or anyone else; you're simply a means to his end."

"But how does he know that's the right Dreadnaught?"

"He probably doesn't," came Megan's reply. "Knowing him, he's probably just guessing. He does it all the time. And with his experience, he's usually right. Although that doesn't mean he can't be wrong. Just once I'd like to see him go wrong; just once I'd like to see Captain Kathhound barking up the wrong tree."

"Captain Kathhound?" Carth made a face. "What did Karath ever do to you?"

"It's a long story," Mist said quietly. "We don't have time for this. Suffice it to say that calling that man a kathhound is still a compliment. Kathhounds don't turn on their packs like people do."

Carth shuddered as the earlier feeling of dread, he had felt before the battle, came over him once more. "I don't like this," he said softly over the comm as he tried to steady his breathing.

Megan's fighter followed from behind, picking off basilisks as they went. "Neither do I, Junior. What happens if that interference signal comes back up?"

"I don't know," the boy replied feeling a slight tinge of nausea as he spoke. "This all just feels like a huge mistake." As the other fighters scrambled, they were met with heavy resistance from another swarm of basilisk droids. They scattered and broke off in all directions with hundreds of warmounts in pursuit.

That was when the jamming signal came up again, and communications were interrupted once more.

* * *

**A**s soon as the interference signal came back online, Admiral Halan's forty years of naval combat experience made him come to terms with the terrible realization that his fleet was not going to survive the encounter. To make matters worse, he could not even order his ship to intercept the Mandalorians, because getting to them required a hyperspace jump. And not being able to jump to hyperspace also meant that he and thousands people on the _Vanguard_ , including the vice-chancellor, were trapped. His only small comfort was his belief that he could still save his ship, and the lives of his crew. "Lieutenant," he said to the helmsman seated at the front of the bridge as he handed him a datapad. "Lock that solution into the nav computer." 

The younger officer gave him a questioning look and then stared up at the Executive Officer.

"Do it, Lieutenant," the Executive Officer replied. "Because the interdictor field is up, the Mandalorians can't get to us without making a micro-jump. And they can't do that without shutting the gravity well down. As soon as that happens, we're jumping out of here."

"But what about the rest of the fleet?" Vrook objected.

"Are you blind?" the Admiral frowned. "That pause wasn't an accident. They shut off the interference signal so they could receive final orders."

"Final orders?" the vice-chancellor asked with a look of concern.

"Final orders," the Halan echoed. "They've already broken through the defense line," he gestured to the sensor board. "That must have been their initial objective which explains the pause. Now they're going to finish the job," he said helplessly. "They're going to blast us into spacedust, or worse."

The Vrook paused reflectively. "What could possibly be worse?"

"Capturing our ships," the Executive Officer answered. "So they can use them on us again."

"This is unbelievable!" Vrook said. "Admiral. There must be something that can be done. You can't just leave the rest of your men to be slaughtered."

"If we don't leave, Master Jedi, as soon as that interdictor field comes down, we're all dead men. I am a soldier. I don't have the luxury of being the idealist when I'm responsible for twenty-thousand other lives, including yours—I might add. The captains of those vessels would do the same thing in my position; they would cut their losses and move on." The Admiral looked up at one of the display screens. "The fleet still has a chance. If our fighters can bring that interdiction field down, they can still salvage what's left by jumping into hyperspace. That is, of course, if they blow up that interdiction generator before their shields fail."

As this was said, Edan opened his eyes and glanced at the bridge's main view port.

"What is it?" the Admiral asked as he glanced at the forward view port and saw nothing but space, stars and asteroids. "What did you see?"

The Jedi Master took a deep breath. "Admiral, if you would do me a one favor, please order your gunnery crews to fire their proton torpedoes at grid zero one."

"What?" the Executive Officer questioned. "That's right in front of us! There's nothing there."

"Humor me, Admiral," Edan said quietly, closing his eyes and letting himself sink further and further into his battle meditation.

Halan was not the type of person to accept ludicrous suggestions, but he did have faith in the Jedi. He knew that they could see things he could not. "Do as he asks!" he yelled at the officer in charge of the main weapons console.

"Yes, Sir," the officer said as he punched the targeting coordinates into the console.

The outer flaps of the Republic Dreadnaught's forward missile launchers opened, expelling eight glowing cylinders of blue light. They journeyed away from the ship into what seemed to be empty space, until all of a sudden, they exploded a kilometer off the bow of the _Vanguard_.

"They're right in front of us!" the Admiral yelled as he saw the stealth field of the ship that matched the T-3 droid's technical readouts collapse, revealing the fiendishly large Dreadnaught in all its hideous glory. "Move to starboard now! Evasive maneuvers!"

Warning alarms screeched from the overtaxed inertial dampeners as the massive Republic Dreadnaught fired its emergency thrusters, clumsily making a right turn while positioning its portside gun batteries.

"Fire at will!" the Admiral barked as he grabbed hold of the bridge railing to steady himself against the sudden change in movement.

Showers of red lasers rained down on the Mandalorian Dreadnaught, the ship that was causing the interdictor field, the ship that was the reason why thousands Republic soldiers would loose their lives before the skirmish would be over and the very same ship that Karath had mistakenly assumed to be advancing on what was left of the Republic fleet when he ordered three squadrons of starfighters to attack it.

* * *

**J**UNIOR, WHERE ARE YOU GOING? THE BATTLE IS THE OTHER WAY! 

Carth looked at his cockpit viewscreen as it flashed an urgent message from Megan while he positioned his starfighter on an intercept course for the second asteroid field. Despite the fact that the jamming signal came on again, they still had their laser communications signals. "Teethree," he said scowling. "Tell her I am going in the opposite direction because the orders don't feel right." Deep down, Carth was wondering what had come over him. Why did he think so strongly that Karath was wrong and he was right?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY DON'T FEEL RIGHT? He read Megan's protest over his cockpit viewscreen. THEY ARE ORDERS AND YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THEM,YOU LABOTOMIZED GAMMOREAN! REGARDLESS OF HOW YOU FEEL!

The boy sighed. He knew he was disobeying orders. He knew what he was about to do probably meant the end of his short-lived military career. And he had no other way of justifying it save for the feeling of impending doom that came over him as he stared through his cockpit canopy at the other fighters headed for the new Mandalorian Dreadnaught that appeared in the distance. "Tell her I think Karath is wrong, and that I'm absolutely certain that's not the Dreadnaught causing the interdiction field," Carth told to the little droid.

Megan saw the message flash on her screen. _How the hell can you know that? You're just a kid: a wet-nosed cadet with only a few weeks of flight training_. "Teeone!" she snapped at her astromech droid as her face turned red with anger. "Tell that spice-headed idiot that I'm in charge, and he's not doing anything other than what I tell him!"

Carth stared at his cockpit viewscreen with resignation. "I'm sorry, Mist. I have to do this. I can't explain why, I just have to. You can disagree with me, you don't even have to like me. You do what you have to do," the boy said.

"Dammit!" Megan yelled as she smacked her helmet back against her seat with frustration. "You son of murglak, you're going to get yourself killed going that way!"

"Karath is wrong!" Carth said as Teethree furiously shot back the message to the other fighter. "There—there has to be another ship on the other side of that asteroid belt. And if there is, that's the one that's causing the interdictor field. If I'm wrong, then I'll probably get killed or expelled, but it sure beats loosing a couple of thousand lives, if I'm right, doesn't it?"

Megan stared incredulously at her cockpit viewscreen. In her mind flashed all the instances that, in her four years of serving as pilot under Karath's command, told her the Line Captain was slime, including the time where he organized a squadron of all female starfighter pilots and put them in the front of the line against a fleet of heavily armed pirate frigates. She had been the only one on that squadron to survive. From that time on, Megan despised Karath with the white-hot unforgiving rage of a betrayed woman. "Alright, Junior," she said ambivalently. "We'll play it your way. But you're not going at this alone. You need a wingmate; so I will cover you." _I'm going to regret this_.

Carth's amber-colored eyes squinted at as he stared his viewscreen. "No, Mist. It's a bad idea! I don't want you getting in trouble too!"

IT'S TOO LATE FOR THAT. WE'RE ALREADY TOO FAR TO REGROUP WITH THE OTHERS. AND BESIDES, I DON'T LEAVE ANYONE BEHIND.

The two Aurek fighters made their way towards the unstable second asteroid belt, dodging shots from four basilisk droids in pursuit.

* * *

**A**dmiral Halan thought bleakly as he continued barking orders. _We're dead_. The key to capital ship-to-ship combat was knocking out an opponent's shields and weapons before they could do the same. In prolonged battles, whole ships could come apart, even if evenly matched. The Mandalorian ship was bigger than the _Vanguard_, and it was only a matter of time before Republic ship's defenses would be breached. "Cycle the shields!" he barked. He was about to say "launch all fighters," but stopped himself short remembering that the _Vanguard's_ fighters were still on other side of the second asteroid field. "Keep firing!" he shouted. "Hit them with everything we've got!"

* * *

**O**n the _Apocalypse_, Mandalore had ordered the helmsman to match the Republic Dreadnaught move for move. "Continue pressing them," he ordered. The he turned to the warrior that was monitoring the shields. "Intensify the forward deflector to cover the interdictor engine." He barked to the engineering crewman managing the power console: "And funnel the extra power from cloaking device to our starboard gun batteries!" He was not going to let the Republic ship get away. The official on that ship was the key to provoking the immediate all-out confrontation that his clans were looking for. Whoever the dignitary was, Mandalore planned on executing him with the entire galaxy watching it live, over the HoloNet.

* * *

**M**aster Edan was in another universe. Amidst the chaos unraveling on the bridge of the _Vanguard_, the Jedi Master stopped focusing on the entire battle as a whole. Deep in his battle meditation, he concentrated on two Aurek fighters who were about to willingly enter into something no sane pilot would fly: an unstable asteroid field.

* * *

**M**egan's gloved hands tightened around her flight control stick in a vice grip as she guided her Aurek starfighter thirty meters behind Carth's fighter. She tried to steady her breaths but failed miserably either from anger or from dread. Her body refused to do what she ordered it to do. _He's insane. He's completely and certifiably insane_, she thought to herself as she followed her wingmate into an inverted dive, dodging out of the path of a river of green laser shots that poured out from two of the four basilisk warmounts pursuing them and descending right into the chaotic storm of metal asteroids. _And I'm worse because I'm going along with him_. Regardless of whether there really was a Dreadnaught on the other side of the asteroid belt, taking their chances by going through the second asteroid belt instead of dealing with the hundreds of basilisks that were around it appeared to be the lesser of two evils. 

AT LEAST ASTEROIDS DON'T SHOOT BACK, said the message on her viewscreen.

"Of course not!" Megan yelled at her droid who raced to shoot her words back to Carth's droid in binary. "All they do is crush," she said sardonically. "Why settle for getting cooked when you can get pounded?" As she said this, another green laser bolt grazed her rear shield arc. "Even better," she said as she leaned her control stick to the left, spinning her craft to port. "Look's like we're in luck: we're gonna get cooked and pounded at the same time." _Now I know what a nerf steak feels like_.

Out of his peripheral vision, Carth caught the general idea of Megan's message, but could not respond. All his energy was focused on dodging the furious cascade of sharp metal chunks that hurled themselves randomly into the path of his Aurek starfighter. His navigational sensors were useless, thanks to the Mandalorian jamming signal, and even if they had been working, taking his eyes off his flying for just a split second was all that was needed for him to become one with the Force. Small metal granules the size of marbles bounced against his shields, and he heard a loud metallic clanging noise as a larger asteroid bounced off his rear deflector. He immediately shut off his lasers and missile launcher and redirected the spare power to the shields. "Teethree!" he barked frantically. "See if you can tweak the shield emitters to boost the particle deflection field!"

The little droid sputtered an affirmative set of beeps and whistles. Republic starfighters were equipped with two kinds of shields: ray shielding, which protected the vessel from laser energy fire, and particle shielding, which prevented the craft from physical impacts, such as missiles or, in this case, millions of asteroids.

Hearing the little droid's response, Carth yelled: "The ray shields aren't going to do me any good in here. Shut them off, and pour all the extra power into the particle shields—got it?"

The droid let out a worried low-pitched tone.

"And tell Mist to do the same!" came another order.

Megan cursed quietly as she saw another message pop up on her viewscreen. _How the hell can he fly in this and think at the same time?_ As she held on to her control stick, trying to match Carth's starfighter move for move, she saw an orange flash out in her rearviewer. One of the basilisk warmounts stalking her suffered a head-on collision with asteroid and exploded, leaving three assailants in pursuit. She could not look back because she was too busy trying to keep up with the fighter in front of her. Her eyes widened in a strange mixture of envy and fascination as she watched the young cadet maneuver his fighter out of the way of a collision between two asteroids, that dwarfed both of their vessels, with only centimeters to spare. It was the craziest albeit most brilliant example of starfighter piloting she had ever seen. The kid flew like he had been born with a flight control stick in his hands; the display of skill went well beyond talent: it did not even look human. "Teeone," she said after seeing something about adjusting the particle shielding flash across her viewscreen. "Whatever he said to do to the shielding—do it!"

But the T-1 droid objected. THIS MODEL DOES NOT HAVE THE INSTRUMENTS TO CARRY OUT SUCH A PROCEEDURE.

"Then what can you do, you rusty little trash compactor?" Megan snarled as she cycled power from her weapons into what was left of her battered shields. "At least make yourself useful and let him know what a useless waste of space and circuitry you are!"

Carth was starting to realize that something very spooky was going on. It started happening as soon as they entered the asteroid field: his craft became easier to maneuver, his reaction time got faster, and he instinctively knew when an asteroid fragment came close enough that he had to dodge out of its way. It was as if the asteroid field itself had opened up, revealing the safe path amidst the constant bombardment of iron planetoids. And as the two starfighters continued to fly further and further through the belt, he could feel himself becoming more and more focused, as if led by an invisible hand. It seemed like every molecule of every part of his surroundings came together to work in perfect harmony. It was both disconcerting and exhilarating at the same time.

Then, he caught a glimpse of his viewscreen displaying Megan's message that her droid was unable to adjust her fighter's particle shielding to compensate for the constant bombardment. The boy felt his stomach turn with the realization that he had to think of something fast, or in a few seconds, his wingmate's shields would fail and her craft would be ripped apart by hundreds of thousands of metal hailstones.

* * *

**O**n the bridge of the _Vanguard_, a new problem surfaced. "Sir!" the officer monitoring the shields alerted the Admiral. "Our port deflector shield is failing!" 

At the same time, the communications officer reported in: "Sir! Our starboard gunnery crews just sighted enemy fighters on an intercept vector!"

"Cycle power from the starboard to the port shield generators," the Halan ordered.

"What about those fighters?" the Executive Officer asked.

The Admiral's dark eyes narrowed as he gazed out through bridge's starboard view port and saw a line of grey specks approaching from the first asteroid belt. "Looks like more basilisk droids," he observed. "And judging by their speed, they'll be in firing range in two minutes."

"We're not going to have time to fully recharge the starboard deflector by the time those droids make contact!" the Executive Officer shouted.

"I'm more concerned about the ion cannons on that Dreadnaught," Halan replied. "We've got to keep those port shields up as long as possible." As soon as the Mandalorian Dreadnaught had decloaked, the Admiral realized that they were fighting a loosing battle. Karath had made an educated guess in ordering his fighters to attack the fifth Mandalorian Dreadnaught appearing over the third asteroid belt, but now it was obvious he was mistaken. Without any means of communicating through the second belt with the _Resilient_ or the _Defender_, the last two functioning ships in the fleet, Halan could only hope that Karath had discovered his own error. Yet at this point in the battle, the realization would come too late: even if the Line Captain managed to transmit a binary signal redirecting the fighters to the right target, the only way to get to it was either through a swarm of hundreds of basilisk droids or through a storm of flying metal. The Admiral knew, as well as every other person on the bridge, that by the time any of the starfighters would get within firing range of the Interdictor Dreadnaught, the _Vanguard's_ shields would be down and her systems would already be disabled.

Yet the Halan had no choice but to continue engaging the Mandalorian Dreadnaught, hoping that somehow, his ship's proton torpedoes and turbolaser cannons would do enough damage to disable their opponent's interdictor engine.

"But our starboard is fully exposed!" the Executive Officer countered.

"Basilisk droids aren't equipped with ion cannons," the older man replied. "They want this ship intact. They're not going to risk damaging our hull if they have to repair it later. We got to keep that port deflector going as long as possible.

Halan then looked to the officer at the helm. "Lieutenant, I want you to match every move that Dreadnaught makes. I don't want them getting a clean shot at our hull. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Sir," the worried Lieutenant replied as he looked down at his helm console.

The Admiral turned to the communications officer. "Order the gunnery crews to shoot anything that looks like a boarding transport on sight," he said. "And give me the main overhead frequency."

The comm officer immediately did as he was told.

"This is Admiral Mon Halan speaking. The ship will soon be boarded. All marine units are to prepare for immediate combat," Halan's voice rang out on all the _Vanguard's_ decks. He then turned and eyed Master Edan who was still deep in his battle meditation trance. "Master Edan," he asked cautiously. "Can you tell me the status of our fighters?"

The Jedi Master slowly opened his weary eyes. "The remaining fighters on the other side of the asteroid field are encountering heavy resistance," he said softly, still maintaining his trance.

* * *

**A**board the _Resilient_, Saul Karath stood awestruck as he looked through the bridge's main view port, realizing that he had ordered an attack on the wrong Dreadnaught. Off in the distance, he saw what remained of forty-two squadrons of the Republic's best pilots getting blown apart by the Mandalorian warships. "Give the retreat binary signal!" he yelled helplessly, realizing at the distance between his ship and the remaining Republic starfighters, few would receive the signal in time to retreat. Even if the majority of pilots returned to their hangars, ultimately, there was nowhere to go. With the gravity well up, it was only a matter of time before his ship, and what remained of the fleet, succumbed to the Mandalorian assault. And then, given what he knew from his own experience with their attackers, his life and that of every other Republic soldier in the fleet would be forfeit.

* * *

**M**eanwhile, Admiral Halan frowned as he studied the Deralian Jedi Master. "Has Karath given the retreat order?" he demanded. 

"Yes," Edan answered. "But small comfort that gives. Retreat to where? You heard what that young pilot from the Delta squadron said: there is isn't enough room left in the hangars of the remaining ships. And even then, those Corellian cruisers can only last so long without being able to jump to hyperspace. But, of course, you already know this since we're all in the same situation."

The admiral did not reply. He watched as the Jedi Master closed his eyes once more and continued concentrating. Whatever the Jedi was doing, he really hoped it was helping, as the situation just kept getting worse by the minute.

* * *

**C**anderous' detachment of basilisk droid riders had just gotten within firing range of the Republic Dreadnaught. His droid banked a hard left to avoid getting hit by turbolaser fire. Being in command, he was the first to fire a volley of laser bolts at his target. The Mandalorian warrior felt a surge disappointment upon seeing that his shots did not bounce off any shields. _Here I was expecting a challenge_, he thought to himself. It meant that the _Apocalypse_ had already managed to get its target's shields down to half. Now, all that was left was to bring down the shields that were covering the other side of the Republic warship so that Mandalorian command ship could fire its ion cannons. "Claws," Canderous said to his basilisk. "Tell the rest of the droids not to fire on the starboard part of that ship. That portion of its shielding is already down." 

Immediately, the droid communicated with its neighboring warmounts, and the fifty basilisk riders veered towards their command ship with the intent of coming back around and bringing down what was left of the Republic Dreadnaught's already battered shields.

* * *

**B**eing a Jedi Master, Edan was painfully aware that using the Force to influence the outcome of a battle through the rare, but teachable, battle meditation skill also made him responsible for lives of those whose skills where enhanced by his power. Over his uncounted years of Force mastery, he had learned that the truth of any situation was a matter of perspective. From the perspective of anyone blind to the Force, the Republic fleet had already lost the battle, but from the perspective of a Jedi, the truth was another thing entirely. 

As the _Vanguard's_ crew struggled to keep her port shielding intact, Vrook's eyes fixed on his former teacher knowing that the man was up to something. As a Padawan, Vrook never had the patience nor the inclination to learn the battle meditation skill, but he respected those who did. Even as a child, Vrook remembered Edan being the most eccentric and enigmatic Jedi Master in the entire Jedi Order. The Deralian Jedi Master's covered face was just a surface example of his many secrets.

_The only way to avert a collision is through perfect synchronization_, Edan sent out the thought through the Force. _The only way to avoid annihilation is through cooperation_. He sincerely hoped the Force would relay his thought, or all was lost. But then he realized the error of his own presumption. _This not as simple as getting what I want to happen_, he thought. The Force would decide the fate of the Republic Fleet, as it would inevitably decide the fate of all, regardless of what he desired.

* * *

**C**arth and Megan had a set of parallel dilemmas: Carth's problem was that he had no ray shielding, making him vulnerable to the flurry of green laser fire spewing from the basilisk droids that hounded him while Megan plenty of power left in her ray shields, but she was easy pickings for any oncoming asteroid over three centimeters. That was when a random thought struck the youth like a freak asteroid. MIST, I HAVE AN IDEA, came a message on Megan's viewscreen. 

Megan caught a glimpse of Carth's message. "Great. Another brilliant suggestion," she said dryly as her droid shot back her response. "Let's hear it."

ADJUST YOUR SHIELDS TO COVER YOUR REAR ARC.

"What are you, crazy?" Megan asked. "Oh yeah—I forgot I only followed you in here—my mistake!"

I'M SERIOUS, Delta Twelve's droid shot back. YOU COVER MY TAIL AND I'LL COVER YOUR NOSE. IF WE'RE SYNCRONIZED, IT SHOULD BUY ENOUGH TIME FOR YOUR SHEILDS TO RECOVER AND KEEP THOSE BASILISKS FROM SHOOTING UP MY TAIL.

Megan frowned as she quickly realized what the young pilot was suggesting. It was simple and yet, crazy enough to work. She concentrated on keeping her craft exactly behind the starfighter in front of her, obstructing the three basilisk riders in pursuit from seeing, or even hitting, the cadet's fighter.

Carth turned his attention away the basilisks trailing behind him, trusting that his wingmate would cover him and focusing all his energy into steering. With youth's particle shields at maximum, he could safely protect Mist's fighter from any oncoming asteroid as long as she remained directly behind him. Through an act of cooperation, parallel problems had turned into complimentary solutions.

Out of frustration over not getting a clear shot at either of the two Republic fighters, one of the three basilisk riders broke formation and tried to cut ahead of his peers. But with the Mandalorian rider's attention more on his target then on his flying, he immediately collided with a large asteroid.

The youth saw the explosion out the corner of his eye and managed a grin in spite of his current predicament.

In her cockpit, Megan also cracked a smile. She had no idea how she was able to coordinate her movements with the craft in front of her. It was as if her hands were a guiding her flight control stick on instinct, and, by some strange twist of fate, the two fighters flew in perfect synchronization. Of course, it was no stranger than her wingmate correctly predicting that there was another Dreadnaught on the other side the asteroid belt. She stared through her cockpit canopy as, off in the distance, she saw two capital ships: one looked like a standard Republic Dreadnaught and the other matched the readouts from Delta Twelve's astromech droid perfectly.

As the two fighter pilots got closer and closer towards the edge of the asteroid belt, passing a series of larger more voluminous planetoids, Teethree tweeted a suggestion.

"Closer?" Carth asked suspiciously. "Why? How do you know we'll be safer if we're closer to the larger ones? You almost sound like you've done this before!"

NO, the droids reply appeared on the viewscreen. BUT I HAVE ACCESS TO THE LOGS OF OTHER SENTIENTS WHO HAVE.

The boy sighed. The droid was already the reason he and his wingmate were still alive. "Okay," Carth said veering his craft to starboard, towards the largest asteroid in front of him. "But you'd better be right about this."

Megan immediately adjusted her heading to match her wingmate. _Junior, I hope you know what you're doing_. The two basilisks were still behind her, each firing off a couple of shots whenever they could.

As the two fighters got closer and closer to the large asteroid, Carth saw a small outcropping with a hole large enough for his Aurek fighter to squeeze through. He brought the craft into a full throttle dive right into it, followed closely by his wingmate.

Inside the asteroid, the cadet maneuvered his vessel out of the way of several massive, spiky ice-crystal formations and brushed up against one of them, sending thousands of little ice shards in his wingmate's path.

"Whatever happened to being perfectly synchronized?" Megan snapped at him over the comm as a rain of tiny ice crystals turned to vapor against her shields.

"The interference signal's down?" the boy questioned.

"Nah," Megan replied. "It's just not strong enough to go through this asteroid, that's all."

As she said this, she saw a ball of flames in her rearviewer. "Well, it look's like we don't have to worry about those basilisks anymore."

"They're off our tails?"

"Yeah," she replied. "They misjudged the size of the entrance."

"That's great news, Mist," Carth said. "But I've got better."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"My sensors indicate we're coming out of this asteroid, and it looks like we're clear of the asteroid belt as well."

"That's not great news!" the young woman replied. "That's fantastic news." Then, she got quiet. "I saw that Dreadnaught you were talking about, Carth," she said finally. "I'm sorry about giving you a hard time back there. How did you know?"

Carth breathed uncomfortably. How had he known? "I don't know," he said finally. "I just did. I—I can't explain it, but I just knew." Then he changed the subject: "If we're going to attack that Dreadnaught, we're going to have to readjust our shields."

"I'm way ahead of you, Junior," she replied. "My shields are back up to maximum."

Meanwhile, Teethree redistributed his fighter's shielding back to an even combination of ray and particle shielding.

"Okay," Megan said with one eye on her viewscreen and one eye on her flight path. "According to these readouts, a direct hit on the interdictor engine-mount with four proton torpedoes should destroy it."

"Copy that," the youth replied. "That's if its shields are down."

"Well, before we entered this tunnel, that Dreadnaught looked to be engaged in a firefight with the _Vanguard_—most likely they've adjusted their shielding to cover their line of fire. We sneak up on them from behind, we get under their shielding and we blow that dreadful contraption into dust."

"Sounds good to me," her wingmate replied. "Why don't you take the lead?"

"Nah, Junior," she said. "It's okay."

"You've been griping about being in charge the entire time, and now you put me in front?" the boy asked. "Nice one, Mist. Let the younger pilot take the hits."

"Well, you didn't seem to be complaining when I was being used for target practice back there," Megan retorted.

"But you're the senior officer, and you've got more experience," Carth grinned.

"Yeah," his wingmate replied. "But you're the lucky one, so you take the lead."

* * *

"**M**andalore!" the voice of warrior monitoring engineering console rang across _Apocalypse's_ bridge. 

Mandalore walked over the clan member that had called him. "Yes?" he asked calmly. "Your report?"

"Our deflector shields are failing," the engineering crewman replied. "I recommend we redirect some of the power from the inactive gun turrets toward the shield generators."

"That will not be necessary," Mandalore declared.

"But, Mandalore"—the Mandalorian engineer was immediately cut off by his commander.

"This ship has heavy armor reinforcements," Mandalore reminded him. "It can take a beating. Even if they've knocked our shields out, we'll still last longer than that Republic ship.

He turned to the helmsman. "Fire the starboard thrusters. A portside roll should be more than enough to cover the gravity well generator."

"Yes, Mandalore," the helmsman acknowledged.

* * *

**O**n his bridge, Halan glanced out of the _Vanguard's_ main view port as the Mandalorian Dreadnaught slowly spun to port while still maintaining an ongoing barrage of turbolasers and proton torpedoes. "They're rolling to port," he told the Executive Officer. In spite of the overwhelming amount of firepower unleashed by the Mandalorians, the crew had managed to keep the port shields working. Although, not without compromising some of the Dreadnaught's starboard turbolaser batteries and missile launchers, and not without evacuating several decks to make more power available to the shield generators. "Their shields must be down then," the Executive Officer observed. 

"Isn't that a good thing?" Vrook asked.

"No, it's a very bad thing!" Halan shouted. "With their shields down we could have targeted the interdictor engine-mount, and finally gotten out of here. But by rolling to port, they've placed the interdiction generator well out of range of our missile launchers." He shook his head in disapproval. It was a perfect stalemate: to knock out the enemy's interdiction engine, the _Vanguard_ had to adjust its position leaving itself vulnerable to the Mandalorians' ion cannons. "Continue firing! Target their engines if possible."

* * *

**F**rom the back of his warmount, as his team of basilisk riders spun around the _Apocalypse_, Canderous noticed that the Mandalorian command ship's hull getting pounded with a constant rain of proton torpedoes by the Republic Dreadnaught. He also noticed how the Mandalorian Dreadnaught had turned to prevent any damage to its gravity well projector. Once again, he unsheathed his sword, ready to give the signal for an immediate charge. But just when he was about bring his sword arm down, through the corner of his helmet visor he saw two lone Aurek fighters emerging from the large asteroid a kilometer away from the Mandalorian flagship. His warmount let out a whimper as he brought it into a hard inversion to face the two stray fighters. "What are those fighters doing here!" he shouted angrily, realizing that no one could hear him through the jamming field. "They were supposed to be destroyed." Instead of giving the attack order on the Republic Dreadnaught, he signaled the riders to attack the two fighters.

* * *

"**S**ir!" the comm officer yelled at the Admiral as he just got off the comm with commander in charge of the _Vanguard's_ port turbolaser batteries. "Commander Selnar just confirmed seeing two Aurek fighters coming out of the asteroid belt—they appear to be ours!" 

The Admiral turned his head. "They must have figured out the location of the interdictor Dreadnaught and gone after that gravity well engine," he said quietly. "Any other fighters with them?"

"None, Sir," the comm officer replied.

Halan sighed; he had hoped more fighters would come. "Very well, Lieutenant," he said. "Keep me posted in case anymore fighters make it through that asteroid belt."

From across the bridge, he saw the two Jedi Masters exchange words.

"That's it?" Vrook incredulously asked his former master. "That's the best you could do?"

Edan slowly open his eyes and glanced shortly at his former student. "I didn't hear you offering any suggestions," he observed.

"You didn't even ask," the other Jedi Master countered.

"Fine," the Deralian Jedi Master growled. "You want to do something, do it. But if you're going to just sit there and complain about other people's actions while you do nothing, then keep your negativity to yourself."

"Two fighters is still better than no fighters at all," Halan added.

The older looking Jedi Master grudgingly crossed his arms. "So it would seem."

Behind them, the vice-chancellor, hearing the exchange, grinned and shook his head in amazement.

* * *

**M**egan's fighter emerged from the large asteroid. As she closely trailed her wingmate, Megan looked up at through her canopy and saw a group of basilisks headed strait at them. "Great," she said as her T-1 droid transmitted her words to her wingmate. "We've got bandits coming in fast at eleven o'clock!" 

"Got it, Mist," Carth said punching his engines to full power as Teethree sent his response back the neighboring Aurek fighter. "I'm going to full throttle."

Immediately a message popped on his viewscreen: WHAT ABOUT YOUR SHIELDS?

"If they want to shoot at me, they're gonna have to catch me first," the cadet snapped as he shoved his flight control stick down causing his fighter to go vertical. "We don't have time to play tag with every single basilisk rider, that gravity well projector is our top priority."

Megan's green eyes narrowed as she banked her fighter to starboard coming up behind Carth's fighter. "Copy that," she said. "I'll cover you."

They were already being trailed from behind by, what looked to be, an infinite number of basilisks.

"Sithspawn!" she hissed as she maneuvered her fighter into a tight spin, narrowly avoiding a pulse-wave cannon burst. "Did these guys start cloning themselves while we were in the asteroid field?"

The basilisk droid immediately buzzed past her and started harassing her wingmate.

Carth spun his fighter to starboard dodging the warmount's shots.

"Oh, that's it!" Megan face darkened as she armed her missile launcher. "Now, I'm angry!" Her index finger pressed the trigger sending two bright blue missiles straight into the basilisk droid right in front of her. The first one brought down the Mandalorian's shields; the next one collided with his warmount's booster engines, engulfing both the droid and rider in one massive fireball.

"Ha!" the young woman gloated over the now expired basilisk. "Not so tough with a torpedo up your butt—are yah?"

Behind her, Canderous veered his basilisk on an intercept course, flanked by five other riders. "The two on my right are on the fighter in front of us," the warrior barked orders to his basilisk droid. "The three on my left are to attack the leader. Break formation now!"

Carth heard Teethree give nervous sputter. The cadet glanced in his rearviewer and saw why the droid was making all the commotion: two basilisk riders were closing in on him fast. "I see 'em," he told his droid easing his fighter out of a spin as if daring the two warmounts to get missile lock on him. At the same time, he noticed another droid moving to intercept on, what looked like, a collision course with his forward shield arc. The boy's eyes widened as he saw the same basilisk fire an orange shatter missile right at him. "Oh Frack!" he hissed, catching his breath as he cut the power to his engines by half, causing the two basilisks chasing him to brush past him right into the path of the shatter missile that took both droids down in one gigantic explosion.

The youth barely had enough time to narrowly turn out of the path of the explosion which turned the red and white coating of his Aurek fighter into a golden brown.

Canderous pressed hard on the engine booster controls of his basilisk, bringing the droid into a full throttle pursuit of the narrowly escaping fighter. "Now that's how a Republic fighter should be served: scrambled and evenly toasted."

Carth exhaled as he shrugged off yet another brush with death. "Teethree?" he called, hoping the explosion had not melted the little droid's circuitry. "Are you okay?"

The droid responded with a frantic whistle.

"I know," the young pilot replied as he saw the basilisk closing in his rearviewer. "I see him too. Hang on! I'll try to loose him." Carth rolled his fighter to starboard and brought the warmount into a chase right along side the Mandalorian Dreadnaught's hull.

"Hmmph," Canderous mused as he continued pressing his young opponent, who kept maneuvering out of the path Claws' laser cannons. "A half-way decent pilot for a change." With the Republic fighter being half the size of his basilisk and making an annoying buzzing noise, it reminded him of the little Ordonian rockhopper, a pesky minuscule insect that seemed to find its way into everything on his clan's home planet. He smiled as he engaged Claws' grappling arms, remembering his childhood memories of how he used amuse himself for hours by pulling the wings off thousands of the little insects. "Alright you freaky little rockhopper; let's see how you squirm out of this!"

"Oh no, you don't!" Megan fumed as she brought her lasers down on the basilisk rider in front of her. She found it easier to target the rider instead of the warmount itself. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw what looked to be the lead basilisk charging Carth's fighter. "Great!" she spat as she spun her fighter into a full hundred and eighty-degree turn. _Hang on, Junior!_ she prayed as she darted behind the basilisk rider hounding her wingmate and adjusted her shields to cover the back of her fighter in case another basilisk tried to shoot her from behind.

As the big menacing basilisk rider stalked his smaller, less maneuverable prey, he sensed the heat of red laser fire buzzing right past his helmet. "Whoa?" Canderous turned his head in annoyance to see another Aurek fighter pacing him from behind.

"Get off him you overgrown tin can!" Megan screamed as she wildly fired her lasers off like madwoman at the basilisk ten meters in front of her.

But the Mandalorian had already adjusted his shields to absorb the Republic pilot's shots. Canderous smiled as he saw another basilisk invert right over him and take two shots at the Republic fighter behind him.

The attack came so fast that it caught Megan off-guard. She barely had enough time to react. She managed to recycle her shields between the two shots, but not before the first shot hit one of her ion drives. The blast disrupted the flow of ion particles out of the sublight engine, causing her fighter to veer off course uncontrollably. She punched shutoff switch to kill the engine, but the laser blast had also caused a short circuit. "Teeone!" she yelled desperately. "Shut that engine off! Shut it off before we're both radioactive spacedust!"

The little T-1 droid acknowledged as its utility arm opened the service panel on the back of the malfunctioning engine.

After watching the crippled fighter spiral out of control, Canderous laughed out load turning his attention back on his quarry. He brought his basilisk's grappling arms up with the full intent of tearing the smaller craft in half.

"Meg!" Carth yelled as he helplessly watched his wingmate get hit, but that was when the youth realized he had a bigger problem: as his fighter traveled down the superstructure of the Mandalorian Dreadnaught, getting closer and closer to the interdictor engine-mount, that rose in the distance like a small hill, the basilisk behind him took swing at him, shredding his what was left of his shields in one swoop. "Teethree do something!" he shouted frantically as the top of his viewscreen lit up indicating a missile target lock on the Dreadnaught's gravity well projector.

"Ha!" Canderous laughed as he watched the small fighter barely recover from Claws' attack. "Your ass is mine!"

That was when a small hatch opened on the top of the little T-3 unit's head, releasing a little sphere, the size an apple, right into the path of the basilisk.

It took a less than a second Canderous to realize that harmless-looking sphere was a thermal detonator that exploded on impact, knocking the heavily armored warrior off his warmount and sending him flying.

Meanwhile, Carth pressed hard on his flight control trigger, emptying the Republic fighter's entire payload of six proton torpedoes into the Mandalorian interdictor. The six glowing blue missiles hit, but the gravity well projector did not explode as it should have.

* * *

**S**ix consecutive explosions rocked the bridge of the _Apocalypse_, causing Mandalore to look up with concern. "What the hell was that?" he snapped, turning towards the engineering crewman. 

"That was a direct attack on our interdictor engine!" the engineer replied frantically.

"What's the status?" the Mandalorian Commander demanded.

"The gravity well is holding, Mandalore," the engineer said nervously. "But one more direct attack on its core like that and it'll blow!"

As the engineer said this, Mandalore managed a stray glance through his bridge's main view port only to see the unmistakable arrow shape of an Aurek fighter as it shot by. "A single starfighter?" Mandalore questioned outrageously. A single pathetic, little starfigher pilot was going to jeopardize his chances of getting the war he always wanted. The Mandalorian commander was furious. "Shoot him! Tell all the gunnery crews to concentrate all their efforts on that one starfighter. Bring that son of murglak down!" his voice thundered over the bridge.

* * *

**M**egan breathed a long, deep sigh of relief when her droid managed to shut down her critical sublight engine. "Thank you, Teeone," she said softly. "I'm sorry I yelled at you." 

The droid made a worried chirp.

"I know," she said maneuvering her damaged fighter on an intercept course with the _Vanguard's_ hangar. "I know we're sitting ducks with just one engine. I feel bad about leaving Junior to fly alone, but neither of us are going to help him by getting killed."

As her Aurek fighter limped away from the Mandalorian Dreadnaught, something large smacked into Megan's canopy.

* * *

**O**nly one piece of equipment kept Canderous from floating off into space. The Mandalorian warrior had won the honor of wearing Mandalorian Crushguants after single-handedly turning the entire continent of a planet into one massive crater. Crushguants enabled their wearer to grab hold of and crush almost anything, including the canopy of the lame Republic starfighter he just happened to land on.

* * *

"**A**hhhh! Megan screamed as any other sane human woman would have done upon seeing the massive hulk of armored warrior slamming into her dashboard and coming face to face with horrible, leering facemask pressed up against her canopy. 

This did not appear to impress the Mandalorian who made a fist and punched right through the fighter's transparansteel dashboard.

The young woman panicked, wildly swaying her flight control stick, trying to shake the crazed Mandalorian off her canopy but to no avail. She sprung back in her pilot's seat, narrowly escaping the armored brute's wriggling fingers as they groped the air right in front of her. She almost glued herself to the back of her chair as she quickly reached into the interior right-side compartment, produced a small hold-out blaster and fired five point-blank shots into her assailant's grasping hand.

Canderous screamed in pain as he pulled his arm out of the tortured fighter's dashboard and let go, leaving the crushgaunt, that covered his right hand, stuck in the forward part of the young woman's canopy before he bounced off the backside of the vessel into empty space.

Still trying to catch her breath, Megan stared blankly at the Mandalorian crushguant that remained stuck in her dashboard that, by a strange stroke of luck, had blocked the hole the armored warrior had punched through, keeping the atmosphere from escaping her cockpit. Her hands trembled on the flight control stick as she eased her fighter in for the final approach towards the _Vanguard's_ hangar. After bringing her Aurek fighter to a screeching halt on the empty deck, the hangar crew helped her out of her cockpit. Some of the crew gazed in disbelief at the large metallic, glove-like object stuck in the punctured canopy of her Aurek fighter. For the longest time, Megan did not say anything, in spite of her ordeal, she quietly walked up to the shielded launch bay entrance and stared out at the ongoing battle. It took sometime and quite a bit of cajoling by the flight deck crew and the lieutenant, sent by the admiral, before she started answering any questions.

* * *

**S**peeding his fighter away from the bow of the Mandalorian Dreadnaught, Carth scowled at the charred Mandalorian interdictor engine that simply refused to explode. Behind him, the Mandalorian command ship's turbolaser batteries turned their attention off the Republic Dreadnaught and focused on him. "Why didn't it explode?" he demanded, angrily waiting for some kind of explanation from his T-3 droid as he weaved his fighter between the turbolaser shots coming off the Mandalorian warship. 

THEY MUST HAVE INSTALLED EXTRA ARMOR ON THAT ENGINE MOUNT.

The boy's eyes narrowed. _Now what do I do now?_ But he also wanted another explanation: "Care to explain how is it that you come with thermal detonators, Teethree?" Republic law strictly forbade the mounting of weapons and explosives onto noncombatant model droids. "You don't, by any chance, happen to have a couple of spare proton torpedoes tucked away somewhere in that chassis—do you?"

THIS MODEL HAS DIPLOMATIC CLEARANCE AND IS PROGRAMED TO CARRY SUCH WEAPONS AS BLASTERS, THERMAL DETONATORS, ROCKET LAUNCHERS AND FLAME THROWERS.

"Diplomatic clearance?" Carth questioned as he dodged more enemy fire. "From whom? Who is your master?"

THE VICE-CHANCELLOR WHO COMMISIONED THE ENGINEERS OF THE TECHNOLOGY DEVISION OF REPUBLIC INTELLIGENCE TO BUILD THIS PROTOTYPE FOR HIS PERSONAL USE.

"The vice-chancellor!" the boy's jaw dropped. "The vice-chancellor is on that ship?" he asked in disbelief. That was when Carth realized that he could not retreat. He had to find some way of destroying the Mandalorian gravity well projector, even if it killed him. The destruction or capture of the _Vanguard_ with the vice-chancellor on board would send shock waves throughout the Republic, plunging it into war it was not ready to face. "Sithspawn!" he cursed as he punched the main power management key on his console, transferring all power from his weapons and shields to the engines, nearly doubling the craft's speed. That was when the youth did something that would go down in galactic naval history as the foolhardy Onasi Maneuver: a stunt so dangerous and so foolish that thousands of years later, it still made the elite pilots of the Empire and the Rebellion, and afterwards, of the New Republic shake their heads and shudder in disbelief, despite their advanced ion engines and improved shielding. It was a feat that, later in his life, he would look back on, in amazement, as a shining example of desperation, bravery and asinine stupidity.

Carth and pushed forward on his flight control stick and brought his fighter around, straight into the hailstorm of proton torpedoes pouring off the Republic Dreadnaught.

* * *

**O**n the bridge of the _Vanguard_, Halan's eyes widened as he saw the Republic pilot plow right through the crossfire between the two capital ships, and getting seven gleaming, blue proton torpedoes to lock on to his fighter in a deadly pursuit. 

Master Edan's eyes remained closed as, through his battle meditation, he concentrated on enhancing the young pilot's already frightfully fast reflexes, knowing that everything depended on them. He totally ignored Vrook's comment about Delta Twelve being suicidal.

* * *

**C**arth swallowed the knot that had formed in his throat and hopelessly took, what he believed was, his last look through the cockpit canopy, gazing in wide-eyed wonder at the dazzling curtain of stars in the background. "Beautiful universe isn't it?" 

Behind him, Theethree panicked. He barked a series of loud sputters, hoping he could get the young pilot to see reason. THE CHANCES OF OUTRUNNING A TRAIL OF SEVEN PROTON MISSILES ARE APROXIMATELY FIFTEEN-THOUSAND EIGHT-HUNDRED AND FIFTY-THREE TO ONE!

"Well," the youth said quietly. "I guess that means I better say my goodbyes now. It's been a pleasure Teethree! I wouldn't have gotten this far without you."

The droid let out a stunned questioning chirp.

While the lone Aurek fighter sped its way down the superstructure of the massive Mandalorian Dreadnaught one last time, the droid reached out with its utility arm making a final modification to the sublight engines, hurrying the pace of what was inevitable.

As the small starfighter passed over the interdictor engine mount, coming within a centimeter of scraping its hull, the train of seven proton torpedoes recalibrated their targeting sensors, locking onto the greater heat source. That was when large hump on the superstructure of the Mandalorian Dreadnaught exploded in a gargantuan orange fireball.

* * *

**O**n the bridge of the, now damaged, Mandalorian flagship, the blast's shockwave knocked several crewman from their stations. One of the consoles exploded. And Mandalore himself, who prided himself on not having to rely on the bridge railing when the inertial dampeners failed, nearly fell flat on his helmet.

* * *

**A**board the _Vanguard_ the officer monitoring the sensors yelled across the bridge: "The interdictor field is down!" 

"Lieutenant!" the stunned Admiral barked. "Engage the hyperdrive"—but his orders were cut off by someone saying: "Belay that order, Lieutenant!"

All eyes on the bridge turned on the vice-chancellor, who had risen from his seat and sternly gazed over the deck with his arms folded squarely over his chest.

"What?" Halan demanded.

Antares' dark eyebrows raised as he spoke calmly: "I'm pulling rank, Admiral. Something which is well in my authority to do according to five-hundredth chapter of the Galactic Constitution: Paragraph Twenty-eight, Subheading Omega which specifically states that 'in the event of an extreme emergency, the supreme chancellor and his or her sub-alternate, the vice-chancellor, shall wield discretionary power over any Republic Military officer.'"

"I'm familiar with that law, Your Honour, but why?" Halan asked. "We need to get out of here."

"I'm sure you can wait until the pilot responsible for our escape makes it to the hangar," the vice-chancellor said. "Considering how many pilots the Republic has lost today."

"But that's impossible, how can he be alive after that?"

Antares turned to Edan, who had not moved from the spot he had been standing for the past five hours. "Is he alive Master Jedi?"

"Just barely," the Deralian Jedi Master said as he broke his battle meditation trance and let go of the, now, bent portion of bridge railing which he had been grasping for support during the battle. "But he's in trouble. If you excuse me, I'm on my way to the main hangar." He quickly walked over to the bridge door and went down the corridor towards the turbolift.

* * *

**C**arth stared in his rearviewer in surprise as he saw the top of the front portion of the Mandalorian Dreadnaught explode. He had a harder time believing that he was actually speeding away from blast. He was on an approach vector with the _Vanguard_ when another basilisk droid came at his fighter from behind and fired off four green laser shots. 

The boy managed to weave out of the way of two of them, but without his shields up, the two remaining shots punctured the hull casing of both of his ion engines. The blasts immediately destabilized the twin fusion reactors, causing both engines to overheat. As the basilisk that shot him was cut down by the _Vanguard's_ turbolasers, Carth watched as his cockpit panel controls indicated imminent engine reactor meltdown. "Teethree! Kill the engines," the youth yelled when his sublight engine controls failed. His fighter speeded dangerously close towards the Republic Dreadnaught's main hangar.

Teethree tweeted an acknowledgement. The little droid helplessly tried to shut down the unresponsive engines. The engine casings swelled like over-inflated balloons. In a last attempt to shut down the fusion cores, Teethree resorted to randomly cutting wires, but to no effect.

The youth had to find a way to slow his craft down. "Hang on!" he yelled. "I'm bringing the repulsors online," He turned on the repulsorlift engines and put them in reverse to slow his momentum. This decelerated his Aurek fighter just to the point where it would not explode on contact with the hangar deck.

"Junior!" Megan screamed as she saw the fighter bounce up and down the hangar. It then skidded across the deck, bringing up showers of sparks and finally coming to rest with a loud metallic _CLANG_ as it hit the wall and stopped in a lopsided position with its nose touching the deck.

Realizing that the impact must have knocked the young pilot out, she was about to run up to his craft when a hangar operator grabbed her from behind and started dragging her away. "Let me go!" the young woman screamed.

"Not a chance," the operator said as he was helped by another crewman. "The fusion reactors on those engines are going to blow!"

"We need to clear the hangar now!" his companion shouted.

"All the more reason to help him out of that fighter, you sexless toad!" Megan helplessly wrestled with the hangar crew as she was dragged off behind the blast door which shielded the hangar entrance.

They were met by a tall, robed man, who wore a headdress that covered all but his fierce blue eyes.

"Open the door," the man said calmly. "And let that pilot go."

"I'm sorry Master Jedi," the senior crewman said. "But it's too dangerous: those engine reactors can go at any second."

Edan's steel-colored eyes narrowed. He had neither the time nor the patience for Jedi mind games at this point. He simply reached out, touching the senior crewman guarding the blast door with the tip of his finger, and the man fell limp into a hibernation trance. The Jedi Master glared at the two crewmen, who had pulled Megan out of the hangar, and they immediately let her go. He placed his hand over the control panel, opening the blast door, and stormed his way inside the hangar.

Megan followed him in. "Wait!" she yelled. "Aren't you afraid those engines are going to blow?" She questioned as she ran after him over to Carth's smoking starfighter.

"If they blow, then they blow," the Jedi Master unconcernedly unclipping the hilt of one of his lightsabers from his belt, for the first time in non-training scenario in ten years, and igniting its angry, purple blade with the legendary _SNAP-HISS_ that throughout the galaxy was universally recognized as the sound of justice.

With two strategically placed cuts, the starfighter's damaged canopy fell open, revealing the unconscious young pilot still strapped into his seat and flung over his controls.

Megan quickly reached in, undid her wingmate's seat restraints and began pulling him out of the cockpit.

"Get him out the hangar," the Jedi said grimly as he walked over to the back of the mangled starfighter. "I'll see to the droid."

"You're risking your life for a droid?" Megan asked as she pulled the incapacitated cadet out of his cockpit and dragged him away by his flight suit collar.

"It depends on the droid," the Jedi replied without emotion as he cut the stuck lock holding the little T-3 droid in place. "This particular one saved both your lives."

Teethree rolled off the hull of the lopsided fighter and speeded down the length of the hangar in the opposite direction.

The Jedi had enough time to deactivate his lightsaber before the starfighter detonated into a huge radioactive explosion. He ran across the deck and tackled the two pilots to the floor as the energy wave, coming off the blast, expanded and consumed everything in its path.

* * *

**FEW NOTES:**

Someone already made a comment regarding the fact that I chose to have basilisk warmounts not look like the one in KOTOR II. _However_, I'm going off the following things

1. Canderous mentioning in KOTOR I that he was strapped to the back of a basilisk droid.

2. The Tales of the Jedi Comics, which portrayed basilisk droids as I have described them here.

3. _The New Essential Guide to Droids_ which shows a typical basilisk model as one that a rider literally rides on the back of.

4. It has been suggested that there were various different models of basilisk droids, which would account for the different model seen in KOTOR II. I have also respected this point. In a subsequent chapter, Mandalore is portrayed riding in a warmount that has an enclosed cockpit.

5. Further information regarding basilisks can be found on wookipedia.


	4. Chapter 4: Jedi Footsteps

"The unexamined life is not worth living." Plato (attributed to Socrates)

"The unlived life is not worth examining." Tom Morris

**O**nly the sensitive ears of a Jedi could discern the sound of two sets of footsteps over the noon hour bustle of the busy Exis Station corridors as a brown-robed traveler passed, briskly leading a dewy-eyed toddler who was scarcely a few centimeters taller than his knee. Amidst the blaring advertisements, the haggling of the street vendors and the noisy crowds gathered in front of the public holo-displays that proclaimed to give the latest, and shamelessly repetitive, information regarding the disappearance of a Republic Fleet, Jolee Bindo could make out a rhythm between his steps and those of his smaller companion. Every _thump_ of his boots against the permacrete walkway was followed by the softer, and quicker, _pit-pat_ of two tiny feet. The Jedi gently tugged on the soft, doll-sized hand completely enveloped by his comparatively large, ruddy fingers, trying to hurry the child's pace; Revan was so small that for each step he took, she had to take three.

"We have to hurry, if we're going to catch the shuttle to the center of the station," the middle-aged Jedi said as he adjusted the roll of colored drawings under his arm.

"But I've counted over a thousand steps already," the onyx-haired youngster complained, and they had been big person steps too. In her own estimation, Revan figured that any attempt to measure the distance they were walking by her own paces would either result in her getting to a number whose name she did not know, and would consequently have to make up, or in the frustration of losing count every time she asked a question. "How far is it?"

Jolee sighed as he stopped, bent down and scooped the child up in his arms like she was nothing, bringing her to sit on his right arm with her little hands partially wrapping around his neck and shoulder for support. "We're almost there," he said gently trying to hush her. "Just a few more minutes." Without having to adjust his speed to accommodate her, he hurried his pace, making his way to the transport shuttle station.

"Where are we going, exactly?" the child asked the Jedi as he carried her through the entrance of the blocky-looking hover shuttle and secured her into a seat.

"The Jedi have a repository in the center of the station," Jolee said quietly looking down at his young companion, trying to come to terms with how small she was. "We're going to speak to one of the masters there about placing you in a new home."

"Oh," Revan said as her bottom portion of her soft pink lips curled in a contemplative frown that looked ridiculously random on a two year-old. She cocked her left eyebrow and asked: "What's a repostitory?" Her little forehead wrinkled with the realization that, somehow, something she had said had not come out quite the way she had planned.

"You mean a repository?" the dark-skinned Jedi grinned.

"Yes, that," the child sighed with frustration at her own clumsy handling of word that her adult companion had no trouble pronouncing.

"Are you asking what a repository is or what Jedi repository is?" Jolee's dark eyes narrowed.

"Both," she replied with the imperious tone of a little princess.

"Well, a repository is a storage site where a vast collection of many things is kept," Jolee explained. "The Jedi repository on this station houses artifacts and archives from what was salvaged from the Halls of Knowledge on Ossus."

"Ossus?" the child asked.

"Yes," the Jedi replied mechanically. "An ancient Jedi center of learning in the Adegan System, that used to be the heart of the Order. We had to evacuate it twenty years ago when the Cron Cluster went nova. Most of what was recovered was brought to this station since it's in Teedio system, making it only a six-hour hyperspace jump away from Ossus itself." Jolee could feel the white hot pang grip his chest as he spoke. There were a lot of things he could have said about the subject, but he decided it would be best to say as little as possible. There was no sense scaring a child, who had already gone through more than many adults could handle, with an ugly story about bad people blowing up stars.

Revan became quiet. The child could feel the emotion in her older companion. "So I'm going to live with the Jedi?"

"Yes, you'll probably be sent to one of the enclaves on Chandrila, Dantooine or maybe Arkania," the middle-aged man spoke, thankful to be off the painful subject of the Sith War. "A hospital is no place for little girl to grow up in."

He could feel the tension release in her tiny muscles. "I know," she said almost too perceptively. "I didn't like that place. It didn't feel right—the walls echoed with pain and sadness. Too many people died there. That place is stained with death."

Jolee's dark brown eyes narrowed looking at the little girl. _She could feel that?_ Her unusual affinity to the Force was starting to genuinely worry him.

Sensing his misgivings, the child immediately asked: "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Jolee replied defensively, startled at her ability to perceive his emotions.

"No," the youngster's eyes pierced right through him like a blue laser cutting through transparansteel. "You're scared of something."

"Jedi don't have such emotions," Jolee said drawing on the Force to further shelter his thoughts.

"Now you're lying," the toddler said keenly. "It's me, isn't it?" she demanded. "You think I'm weird, just like all the other big people said I was."

"What?" Jolee asked.

"Don't try to hide it," Revan said miserably. "It only makes it worse. I know Lotta did his best to hide it, he didn't want me to feel bad." A thin smile broke through her frowning lips. "He meant well, though—unlike the Mandalorians, although they thought otherwise."

"Do you always know what everyone is thinking?" Jolee asked suspiciously.

"Yes," the child said. "And I know what they're feeling too. That usually gives me a pretty good idea about what they're thinking. When the Mandalorians attacked, everyone in my village was scared. I was scared too. Mostly I was afraid because my parents were also. When big people are afraid of something, you know that, whatever it is, it can't be good." Her soft voice became sadder and her big blue eyes became glossy. "I miss them."

With that, Jolee protectively placed his arm around her, and sighed. "We all miss the people we love, child."

The little girl turned and eyed him carefully, "That's why you're sad too."

"I don't want to talk about it," Jolee he said grumpily.

"Why are you pretending to be angry about it, when you're really just sad?" the child asked.

"Adult problems are a lot more complicated than that," Jolee observed.

"I know," the child observed distantly. "When adults can't solve their problems, people die—I wonder what the Mandalorians' problem is." She turned her eyes carefully on the Jedi and her unnaturally thorough gaze seemed to go right through his mental defenses.

"You loved _her_ didn't you?" she spoke almost prophetically.

Her words felt as if someone had plunged a lightsaber straight through Jolee's heart. "Didn't I say I didn't want to talk about it?" he sounded genuinely angry, but as he stared back into her eyes that sparkled like two blue corusca gems his expression softened. Her questions were just the result of normal childhood curiosity.

"Was she beautiful?"

"Every woman is beautiful in her own special way, even the annoying little ones that ask too many questions," Jolee replied flatly.

The next question was the most natural question a child Revan's age could ask: "Did you get married?"

"Yes," the Jedi said helplessly shaking his head, giving up any prospect of holding his own against his young inquisitor.

"Then why are you sad?" the child asked.

Jolee sighed, like most children, Revan had probably been told endless stories and little fairy-tales that always ended with somebody getting married. Of course, in his opinion, it was the most preposterous example of preconditioned programming a culture could ever conceive. "Because," he replied firmly. "In real life marrying someone is no guarantee of a happily-ever-after like in the stories you've heard. In real life that's when the hard work begins. A love relationship with another person is the most difficult thing any sentient can ever achieve, let alone maintain." The Jedi paused letting his words sink in, realizing that they were the answer to his question of why love-relationships were discouraged by the Jedi Order. There was a certain irony to it that, perhaps, only he could appreciate. For all their vaunted powers, their ability to defy the apparent laws of nature and their almost absolutist dedication to peace and justice, the Jedi shrunk away from the greatest thing in the universe: love. Again, his own doubts entered his mind of whether it would be a good idea to bring Revan into the Jedi Order, but then the memories of his youth made him realize that if he had been given another lifetime to do everything all over, he would have willingly chosen the path of a Jedi again. Ultimately, like any organization, the Jedi Order was made up of individuals, and this child would find herself by either bending to its dictates or mustering enough integrity to challenge them.

The child appeared to be contemplating his words carefully when her gaze shifted to the shuttle's telescreen which featured the newest headline concerning the missing Republic fleet: "This just in from HNN. The Chancellor's office now confirms that there was an attack on the Republic Fleet carrying the Vice-Chancellor today, in the Vergasso Asteroids. The Vice-Chancellor was attending the annual Galactic Starfighting Tournament when the fleet squadron was attacked by an unknown hostile fleet. Sources from within the Office of the Chancellor, on Coruscant, say that the Vice-Chancellor is safe although they could not be reached for comment. Initial reports from Republic Intelligence indicate three-thousand casualties in this incident"—the child eye's narrowed as she stared at the screen.

"They're lying," Revan whispered into Jolee's ear. "That's not even close."

"Keep your voice down," the Jedi responded. "When giving the masses information about casualties, it easier to begin with a lower number and gradually raise it—people are more accepting that way."

"But that's not right," Revan protested. "They already know exactly how many people have died."

"Hush child," Jolee whispered. "That's how all governments work."

"By lying?" the toddler voiced her disapproval. It boggled her young mind that adults would willingly lie to each other when she had been told time and time again that lying was a bad thing. Apparently, acceptable child behavior and acceptable adult behavior were exact opposite things.

As the shuttle finally stopped in the center of the station and the two disembarked, Revan looked back at Jolee as if about to say something.

Moving in the direction of a large blast door, that looked to be the entrance to the Jedi repository, Jolee sensed his companion had yet another question. "Yes?" he asked her with clear exasperation as he approached, what looked to be, a security droid.

"Can you tell me one thing?" the child asked Jolee as the security droid let them pass through the blast door into a large receiving room with massive decorative arches. At the base of each arch stood a single stone statue; statues encircled the room. They were statues of Jedi: some were alien, some were human and some of them were old enough that they were holding swords instead of lightsabers and wearing togas instead of robes. Doubtless these statues had been saved from the initial destructive blast that ripped through space following the detonation of the Cron Cluster. Some were missing fingers or tentacles, the statue of what looked to be a Caamasi Jedi had a broken snout, and others had cracks and fissures that testified to the careless haste with which they had been removed.

"When, exactly, is it okay to lie and when is it not okay?" Revan stared questioningly at her Jedi companion as a similarly dressed figure approached them. It was a simple and logical question: if something was considered both wrong and right, then it obviously could not be both wrong and right at exactly the same time.

"That's almost as difficult to answer as the question of when is it appropriate to answer such a question and when is it better to remain paradoxically silent," Jolee replied as he greeted a brownish salmon-colored, fishlike alien dressed in Jedi robes. The species Jolee recognized as being a goggily-eyed Mon Calamari. _Both are questions that few ever dare to ask, and that no one wants to answer_.

Revan remained quiet as Jolee turned to face the Mon Calamari, who was a Jedi scholar.

"I'm here to see the main chronicler, regarding a new addition to the Jedi Order," Jolee said as he gestured to Revan.

"The chronicler is extremely busy," the Mon Calamari scholar replied evenly. "She is trying to prepare the latest shipment of books bound for the Temple on Coruscant, and has requested not to be disturbed."

"Well, I also have information that the High Council will have particular interest in," Jolee replied as he removed the roll of colored drawings from underneath his arm. "And as the Council's Chief Historian, Master Kreia has a duty to report any interesting findings to the Jedi Council, particularly since my information concerns the attack on the Vice-Chancellor's ship."

The Mon Calamari scholar seemed to consider this for a moment. "Right this way," he said gesturing for Jolee to follow.

The middle-aged Jedi turned to Revan, who against the backdrop of stone statues and vaulted arches, looked even more diminutive. "I'll be back soon," he said.

"But"—she was about to object when he quickly cut her off.

"Stay here," Jolee insisted. "I won't be long."

"Okay," the child said with frustration as she saw him disappear through one of the corridors, behind one of the arches. Revan looked at her surroundings, finding herself alone like she had been on many other occasions during the past week. It was time do some exploring.

* * *

**W**hen Chief Staff Officer Olgin, a CSO in Republic military-speak, who was the senior crewman in charge of the _Vanguard's_ main hangar finally snapped out of hibernation trance the exasperated Jedi Master had placed him in, seconds later, he had quite a bit of trouble discerning what exactly had happened. Something was not adding up. According to the rest of the hangar crew, the Aurek fighter that had crashed in the hangar bay had exploded just before the Dreadnaught jumped to hyperspace. This much had been confirmed by the feed from the security console outside the hangar, which clearly displayed a brilliant flash of light just before camera signal cut out completely; no doubt, from the heat melting the aperture. But according to the environmental sensors, the minute spike in the hangar's radiation levels at the time of the explosion was not even close to indicating an engine reactor meltdown. However, according to the computer log, the hangar's automatic safety systems had been triggered, covering its entire deck in fire-suppression foam.

* * *

**M**egan groaned as she felt something or someone much larger than herself pinning her down to the hangar deck. The last thing she remembered was frantically dragging her incapacitated wingmate from the wreckage of his ruined fighter when something knocked her down just before she heard the sound of superheated metal give way to an earpiercing rumble.

"Don't open your eyes," a man's voice said directly into her ear. She immediately realized of the Jedi who had cut Carth loose in last possible instant.

"Why?" she managed to say, as her heart started to race. "Am I injured?"

"No," the Jedi's voice said calmly. "The deck's covered in fire retardant; the chemicals will burn your eyes."

"Great!" she exclaimed remembering that the engine blast had released enough radiation to sterilize a Rancor. _So much for ever having kids_. "Where's Junior? Is he alright?"

"Unconscious, but, like you, fortunate to be alive," the Jedi replied.

"Because of you," Megan said.

"Because of the Force," the Jedi corrected her. "Working _through_ me."

She could feel the Jedi's weight shift, and she started getting up when she felt his large hand grab her forearm.

"Stay close and move with me," he cautioned. "I cannot extend the energy absorption field through the Force further than a full meter around my body."

"How are we supposed to get out of here if we can't even see where we're going?" the young woman demanded.

Edan bent down and picked up the unconscious pilot that was still beneath him. The young man was almost as tall as him, but with a lifetime of endurance training, the Jedi Master had little trouble scooping the cadet up in his arms. "Grab a hold of my elbow," he said reassuringly. "I'll guide us out."

As she felt around for the Jedi's elbow, Megan's hand randomly brushed up against what felt like her wingmate's helmet. She realized immediately that the Jedi had to be doing several things at once, which included carrying the incapacitated pilot, maintaining a Force energy-field shielding all three of them from the harmful effects of the radiation coming off the smoldering fighter, and blindly walking towards the hangar's blast door.

Beneath his headdress, the Jedi Master strained. In reality, he had done much more: he had used the Force to redirect any shrapnel coming off the blast away from the two young pilots and himself during the initial few micro-seconds of the explosion, and he had also dissipated a vast amount of the radiation coming off the blast.

* * *

**T**he CSO found himself staring with his mouth wide open when the blast doors sealing the hangar entrance briefly cracked to let two unharmed figures walk out through the escaping steam coming off the superheated deck. After the doors resealed and the cloud of smoke and vapor dissipated, it became clear that all three people who had been in the hangar at the time of the explosion had miraculously escaped unharmed and unsinged: the first was the obstinate female pilot, who insulted the CSO's manhood just minutes earlier and who still flashed an occasional dirty look at the hangar crew whenever she glanced away from her unconscious wingmate, the second was the masked Jedi who had all but validated that insult after placing the CSO in a temporary hibernation trance, and finally, the debatably insane pilot who was responsible both for the saving the his live and putting a smoldering seven-meter crater in the hangar's durasteel deck plating. The youth was blissfully, if not enviably, unconscious as the Jedi gently carried him across the hangar threshold and laid him down in the middle of the corridor.

Although Olgin was not too fond of seeing the troublesome trio, he did not grudge them the fact that they were still alive. "I need a medical team down in the hangar!" he called on his communicator's emergency frequency as he made his way through the crowd of crewmen that gathered around the survivors. "Alright people," he said shooing the observers away. "Let's give them some breathing room—you don't want to get too close! Remember, they've been exposed to hell of a lot of radiation."

Like demons dispelled by some magical incantation, the crowd of curious onlookers immediately dispersed upon hearing the word "radiation."

After noticing the frightened look on the female pilot's face, the Jedi turned to the CSO. "How nice!" he exclaimed with acidic sarcasm. _That's a great thing to say to two young people after an already frightening ordeal_. "Why didn't you just say we have the Iridian Plague? It would have been even _more_ effective!" He looked back at the flight lieutenant who looked like she was about to burst into tears. "Don't worry," he told her reassuringly. "It'll be okay. At least the both of you are alive and safe."

"Easy for you to say," Megan noted bitterly as she watched the Jedi Master kneeling over Carth, drawing on the Force to revive the young pilot. "You're a Jedi. You people don't have _even_ have children!"

About an instant later, Carth sat straight up on the corridor floor finding himself terribly disoriented. "Wh-What happened?" the boy asked, seeing strange, robed man with a cloth-covered face hovering over him and failing to notice that Megan was so glad see him awake, she planted a light peck on the cadet's temple.

"I was right about you," she managed a strained smile as she removed her flight helmet to reveal a head of short tousled blonde hair. "You really are lucky." _Well, sort of_.

"You're safe," she said gesturing to the robed stranger. _And sterile_. "In no small part, due to this Jedi, here."

Carth looked at the man that was still bending over him that laid a firm yet reassuring hand on his left shoulder. A Jedi? The boy was amazed. He had heard of them, he had read about them in his school books, and he remembered this mother making a snide off-hand remark about the Jedi Order when he was younger, but to his knowledge, he had never actually met one.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" the Jedi demanded.

The boy was not sure exactly what to say since he was almost positive the Jedi was not holding his other hand up in front of him. "Um. None," he said finally, feeling a little confused.

"Good," the Jedi nodded with a tone of satisfaction. "It was a trick question, just to see if you were alert." Edan rose to his feet as the team of emergency medics finally arrived.

A man in a standard red and black Republic uniform, wearing a medic's badge on his right shoulder, immediately bent down with a medical scanner over the youth.

"You may want to get these two out of their clothes and administer decontamination procedures," Edan suggested to the medical team. "These two have been exposed to a heavy dose of radiation."

The Republic medic threw a quizzical look at the Jedi Master and shrugged. "That's not what the medi-scan says," he said as he got up, leaving the other two medics to attend to Carth and proceeding to examine his female companion. He then stared blankly at the Jedi Master. "I don't know what extensive medical training you have, Master Jedi, but I'm reading both of these pilots as perfectly healthy—with the exception of that one right there"—he looked back at Carth, who had managed get up and walk few paces, but after a short wobble the medics instantly pounced on him, sitting him back down—"who looks to have a mild concussion."

"Oh—urm—Good," the Edan turned his eyes back on female Flight Lieutenant who's face, by now, had turned a lovely shade of dark pink. "I stand corrected," he told her apologetically.

Megan waited for the medical team to clear the corridor before quietly approaching the Jedi Master once more. "Um—I apologize, Master Jedi, I didn't realize how thoroughly the Force worked, and this is the first time I've ever really needed rescuing from anyone. I meant no offense when I said Jedi don't have children."

"None was taken," Edan replied casually. "Your observation is somewhat correct. The Order does discourage us from having such entanglements, but"—his blue eyes seemed to smile sympathetically—"just because we choose not to have offspring doesn't mean we don't sympathize with those who do. A Jedi always acts in the service of life, including life that has yet to exist."

"Well, for what it's worth," Megan added. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Edan said making out the young pilot's badge name on her flight suit. "Lieutenant Nayland. It's part of the job description." Before he could leave, however, she unexpectedly reached over and gave the Jedi Master a big thankful hug. "Um, that's not," he added somewhat surprised, the Jedi Order was not exactly fond of public displays of affection either. "But it's nice anyway."


	5. Chapter 5: No Win Situation

"But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. " Paulo Cuelho

**T**hroughout the millennia, there has been a general consensus amongst the galaxy's most brilliant minds that there is no such thing as a true winner in any war. It has been concluded in millions of ways and in countless different languages and dialects. As he maneuvers his basilisk around one of the less damaged Corellian Warcruisers and surveys the aftermath of his first engagement with the Republic forces in twenty years, embittered by the loss of the Republic Dreadnaught which had been within his grasp, Mandalore starts to understand why so many of the books he has read have made this assertion.

Although many of his subordinates sneer at the prospect of paging through the written ramblings of the conquered, or soon to be conquered, he knows there is some value in it. If anything, he quickly learns what the sharpest minds of a people are thinking. He gauges the subtlety of any idea put forward by writers, scholars, statesman, philosophers and various historians, by their overall popularity with the rest of their brethren. Does a civilization, as a whole, embrace the ideals of its cultural leaders? Will it fight to preserve these ideals? How do the thoughts of the average individual from any particular culture compare to that culture's greatest achievements? These seem like questions that are almost too deep for a hardened warrior to consider, but they are not. The answers to these questions tell Mandalore whether a civilization has vitality or whether it is in decline.

Since Mandalore reflects the teachings of his people, his standards speak for themselves: if a people are out of touch with their own ideals, their civilization is in decline; if they are not, then their civilization is still young and viable. He despises the former because such a civilization is rotting from the inside out: it is stratiated society with a corrupt and self-serving leadership at the top and the masses scratching a living at the bottom. If it has not reached the most advanced stages of decay, there is still a middle class that preserves some distant semblance of what it used to be. Yet the majority of sentients in this class are complacent, self-serving, and shortsighted. Locked away in their comfortable dwellings with their blaring holo-comms and luxury speeders, they are content to remain ignorant and uniformed of the universe around them, failing to realize that neglecting what affects the least member of any society, left unchecked, will fester to engulf that entire civilization.

In the final stages of decay, before a civilization topples, only two classes remain: the excessively wealthy, comprising of less than one percent of the total population, and the completely destitute, who subsist on catering to the warped and decadent tastes of the elite. Regardless of whether the civilization spans a continent, a planet or several star systems, the phenomenon is still the same. Such societies are the quickest to embrace the prospect of war because it dually provides a solution for those at its top and at its very bottom. The elite see war as an insecticide: a tool for checking the numbers of the grumbling masses that groan under their yoke; it is a simple means of insuring their wealth and fueling their insatiable lust for power. To the rabble, war is faint glimmer of hope in murky quagmire of despair: some of them see the death it brings as a release to their already miserable existence; others see it as a vehicle for change when their situation cannot possibly get any worse, and the most embittered, as a form of revenge.

Such a society is ready to collapse like a house of a Paazak cards. There is no need to conquer a people who have already conquered themselves. A single nudge is all it takes to bring a house of cards crashing down upon itself. And that is what Mandalore does so well: he nudges decaying civilizations into oblivion. And once the deck has toppled, he gathers the cards: he seizes their war machines, their ships, their armaments, and their resources. He converts the already angered and impoverished masses to his cause. In their hearts, such people are already half Mandalorian because they are willing to fight against anyone or anything that stands in their way. All he has to do is show them that way. And as more civilizations topple under his fist, the greater Mandalore's Paazak deck becomes: his fleet just keeps getting bigger, his collection of weaponry more precise, more deadly and more efficient, and the millions that gather under his banner will soon swell to become billions.

The latter type of society is what Mandalore respects. It is what he considers to be a worthy adversary. Defeating such a civilization proves to him that he and his warriors are stronger and nobler. It is not a society that exists materially. It is an ideal that lives in the heart and mind of every single member of any just society. There is a commitment to improve and change. There is cooperation and empathy, even if the society is divided into parts. The parts work together in harmony for the good of the whole which is not a static ideal, but a living and breathing one, that changes and gets better with time as the society overcomes one shortcoming and realizes that its limits are obstacles that can be transcended, rather than uncrossible barriers. That is what Mandalore sees in his people. No longer are the Mandalorians a single race, but a diverse pool of peoples from an untold number of planets in the Unknown Regions. They are all different: some are human, like Clan Ordo, some are descendants Taung Shadow Warriors from which Mandalore traces his ancestry, and there are many others too diverse and too numerous to mention. Yet they are all the same: they all embrace Mandalore as their unquestionable leader, they all know the Mandalorian Code, and they all want to test themselves in battle against a worthy foe. That is why Mandalore is deeply disappointed, and somewhat perplexed.

He has been promised the Final Battle, which the Mandalorian sages of elder days prophesied, is at hand, and that the Republic is to be the single worthy adversary. Yet as he looks out at what is left of the fleet his forces just decimated, he cannot help but wonder if the Sith have deceived him. After all, in his mind, only one word can summarize the Sith as whole: _treachery_. The Sith have no loyalties; even amongst themselves, all they ever seek is power. Although there is some common ground between them and the Mandalorians: their mutual worship of strength and their belief that only the strong should dominate. But that is where the similarity ends. The Mandalorians have always been bound by discipline, loyalty, honor and an unswerving sense of duty to their leader, whereas the Sith are united by fear, hatred and mutual hunger for power.

Although the Mandalorians have managed to destroy six enemy troop carriers and disable five Warcruisers, ultimately taking out eleven of fourteen capital class starships, Mandalore is dissatisfied with the outcome of the battle. He is angered by several things: first, that the Republic forces did not seem to be quite the challenge the Sith made them out to be; second, his plan to capture the Republic Dreadnaught suspected of carrying an important official was thwarted by a single starfighter pilot; and finally, that after this first battle, he cannot tell for certain, one way or another, how much resistance he can expect from the Republic.

Behind him, a wing of basilisk riders follow, picking up what has remained of their fallen comrades. This is not for any sort of elaborate mourning ritual, but for purely practical purposes: what is left of their armor is still useable, just like the Republic Warcruisers, which will be used in future battles, once the crews inside of them are eliminated.

* * *

**A**s two huge rectangular ships dropped out of hyperspace right above the third asteroid belt of the Vergasso Asteroids, Mandalore heard Cassus Fett's familiar voice over the comm. He turned to face the spectral image of an armored warrior that appeared on the small holo-comm next to his basilisk's controls: "Mandalore," the warrior said. "The _Citadel_ and the _Baneful_ have emerged from hyperspace and are requesting orders."

Mandalore looked through the canopy of his enclosed basilisk warmount, seeing the Mandalorian Dungeon Ships that arrived to carry off the captive Republic soldiers into slavery, the Mandalorians' simplest solution to dealing with the large numbers of war prisoners. Some would be put to work in the mines on the Mandalorian homeworld. Some would be sold to galactic crime organizations, like the Hutts and the Exchange. And others would be used as bargaining chips, offered to any organization that had vital information, including Sienar Fleet Systems, which kept its operating costs down by locating some of its shipyards on worlds where the cost of production could be reduced with slave labor. Sienar, one of the galaxy's largest and most respected military vessel manufacturers, had little reservation of trading information in exchange for cheap labor. By the time the Galactic Senate would finally declare war on the Mandalorians, thirteen years later, the Republic would have already purchased ships from Sienar which were constructed by its own prisoners of war, presumed to be dead or missing in action. And the Mandalorians would have detailed knowledge of virtually all Republic warships designed by Sienar.

"Yes, Cassus," he replied over his communicator. "They are to maintain contact with the boarding teams and to dock with each of the Republic Warcruisers upon confirmation that all Republic opposition has been crushed."

"Understood, Mandalore," Cassus replied as he signed off.

The casket-shaped Dungeon Ships that loomed towards the disabled remains of the Republic fleet had seen service before. Any veterans of the Sith War among the crews of the stranded Warcruisers would immediately recognize these dreadful prison ships. Nearly eight-hundred meters in length, each could carry eight thousand prisoners, and, ironically, the Emperor would use the same exact design for the Imperial Dungeon Ships that, thousands of years later, would carry Jedi prisoners to their doom during the purges following the Clone Wars.

One basilisk rider broke formation and brought his own droid alongside Mandalore's warmount.

From the familiar symbols on the warrior's armor and basilisk, Mandalore recognized him as the chieftain of Clan Ordo. "Yes, Caldar, why are you out here?" Mandalore asked as he turned his head sideways through his cockpit to face the other rider.

"I was going to stay aboard the _Ascendant_, but I heard you were going to inspect the new ships personally," Caldar said.

"Yes," Mandalore answered evenly. "I'm planning to visit each of them once the boarding parties have confirmed suppression of all opposition on the final Republic Warcruiser, but that's not the only reason you are here, is it?"

"No, Mandalore," underneath his helmet, Caldar answered uncomfortably. "It isn't. I know you've also sent out basilisk riders to recover the armor of our fallen warriors"—before Caldar could even finish his thought, Mandalore completed it for him.

"And you're hoping that your son is among the survivors," Mandalore said mechanically.

"Um, yes," the Caldar replied quietly wondering what Mandalore's response would be.

"You are aware, Caldar, that if he has been seriously injured there is nothing that can be done for him," Mandalore declared matter-of-factly. "We don't have time to coddle the weak and injured."

"I'm aware of our traditions, Mandalore," Caldar bit his lip. "But he _is_ my son."

"Well," the Mandalorian Commander noted. "_That_ means you can _always_ have _another one_."

"Do you have any children Mandalore?" Caldar asked trying to look straight through Mandalore's grey helmet.

"I _am_ Mandalore; all the clans with all their warriors are my children," he declared. "And I'm not prepared to sacrifice the welfare of the strong, to indulge the feeble and indolent."

"My son is _neither_, Mandalore," Caldar insisted. "My son has been a warrior for twenty standard galactic years, and he has never fallen. His skill with the basilisk warmount is unmatched," he stopped himself short and quickly added "among the rest of the warriors, of course."

"Of course," the other echoed without a trace of enthusiasm.

"And his strategic skills are superior to even to Cassus," the Caldar continued.

"If his skills are superior, Caldar," the Mandalorian Commander questioned, "then why was blown off his warmount to begin with?"

_If your skills are superior_, Caldar thought to himself. _Then, how come we lost the opportunity to capture almost an entire fleet of ships because of a single starfighter pilot?_ He immediately knew that voicing his thought out loud, for the rest of the basilisk riders to hear, would be taken as a challenge, so the Ordonian Chieftain decided to try a different approach. "Mandalore?" he asked. "How many major victories has Canderous brought the clans?"

"More than a dozen," the Mandalorian leader replied as he flew his basilisk towards another disabled Republic cruiser, watching the boarding transports as they continued to dock on the hull of the ship, like small flies landing on a disoriented beast of burden.

"And you were counting on him to lead our legions of basilisk riders into battle against the Ardilonian defenses," Caldar reminded Mandalore. "And who is going to lead frontal assault on Althir? Cassus is a decent choice, but his skill with the basilisk is lacking. In how many days are we planning to move on Ardilo?"

Mandalore frowned beneath his helmet. "It all depends how long it will take to move the prisoners off the ships and to perform enough repairs on the captured war cruisers to outfit them with slave rigs so that we can move them out of the system in the event a larger Republic force arrives—in addition to rendezvousing with the rest of the main fleet, re-supplying, plus the five-hour hyperspace jump to Ardilo—a week perhaps."

"This sidestep, has put us behind schedule," Caldar observed.

"This _sidestep_ was the perfect opportunity to test ourselves against the Republic to see exactly what its forces are capable of, without entering Republic Space," Mandalore reminded him. He had no intention of repeating the Coruscant fiasco twenty years ago or the embarrassing defeat at Onderon; he would not make the same mistakes that the Mandalore before him had. This time, the invasion would be planned and executed with precision; there would be no Sith betrayals and no Jedi double-cross, only the Mandalorians against the galaxy.

"So there is some time, for any lightly injured warrior to recoup?" Caldar asked.

"Yes, of course there is," the Mandalorian Commander replied. "I'm not going leave anyone behind on account of a few bumps and bruises."

"So if, by chance, Canderous happens to be uninjured or has only minor injuries, it is still permissible to give him a chance to recover?" Caldar asked. "After all it took more than twenty years to train Canderous to be the warrior that he is, and it would take another twenty years to find and train another to his level of skill. A week is a very short time compared to that."

Mandalore scowled, realizing where Caldar's line of questioning was going. He brought his basilisk droid to a full stop so quickly that the other riders barely had enough time to adjust their headings. "Your clan really has a problem with abandoning the idea of tending to the injured doesn't it?" Through his helmet he glared directly at Caldar Ordo, waiting for a response.

In spite of realizing that he had just placed himself a very precarious position, Caldar continued: "_I_ have a problem with not tending to the injured when it'll take more time to train new rough recruits to replace them than it would to give them proper medical attention for their injuries, Mandalore—Call it a human habit, that dies hard."

Mandalore sighed; Caldar's quirky human logic was starting to get on his nerves. "Look for your son," he said finally. "And do whatever you think is necessary to get your clan ready for battle. But in a week, they are attacking Ardilo just like the rest of the clans, with or without Canderous."

"Yes, Mandalore," Caldar acknowledged as he quickly turned his warmount's guidance controls in the other direction, letting the wing of other basilisk riders pass him by as he activated his droid's sensors to scan for the unique emergency radio signal that the helmet of every unmounted basilisk rider would broadcast, in the hope of finding Canderous, his only son and chosen successor.

* * *

**I**magine finding yourself in the ultimate no-win situation:

You are the Republic Captain of a five-hundred-meter-long Corellian Warcruiser with a standard crew compliment of no less than thirty-five hundred naval personnel in addition to eight-hundred Republic Marines, stationed onboard to protect the crew in the event of a hostile boarding. The fleet squadron that your ship is part of has been ambushed by what looks to be a Mandalorian fleet of five Dreadnaughts. After several torturous hours of heavy space-combat, the three squadrons of Aurek starfighters, that are your ship's first line of defense, have been blown out of the sky. Your turbolaser batteries have been fired so many times that their control consoles are literally melting. The standard laser cannons, lining the hull of your vessel, have all been destroyed. Your shields are nonexistent. The navigational controls and the main power circuitry have been completely ionized. All you have left is the barely operational and intermittent life-support system controlling the atmospheric scrubbers and the emergency lighting, which constantly flickers on and off, allowing you to see no further than a couple of meters in front of you. Although you still have your personal communicator, which lets you give orders, you would much rather to leave it off, since all of its frequencies are cluttered with the helpless cries of distress from injured or dying members of your crew that are still trapped in the areas that have been sealed off due to hull breaches.

The number of fatalities is mind-boggling. Nothing in your long years of military experience could prepare you for this: half your crew is dead, and almost everyone left has at least some kind of an injury, ranging from severe plasma burns all the way up to missing body parts. The medical bay is a disaster area: there is no more kolto, there are no more pain killers and even regular bandages are in short supply. The ship's morgue is full to capacity, and you are rapidly running out of ideas as to what to do with all the bodies of dead soldiers that just keep piling higher and higher. And that is just the start of your problems.

The primary hyperdrive is gone as is the slower back-up hyperdrive. Even when, by some miracle, the interdiction field keeping the fleet in place goes down, without a hyperdrive, you cannot jump to the blue haven of hyperspace. All you can do is sit with your crew and watch in silence as the last three Republic ships, with functioning hyperdrives, vanish, leaving you, and what is left of your fleet, behind. Although well beyond the point of being frustrated with your current predicament, you cannot reasonably blame the commanding officers of those vessels for leaving. Their duties in such a situation are the same as yours: to protect the Republic's interests, which includes the ship and the lives of its crew, and to simultaneously be prepared to sacrifice both of them for the good of the Republic. The slim chance of your survival changes nothing. You duty remains a simple fact, just like the fact that the escape pods are off-line.

As you stand on the deck of your bridge, gazing through the view port, trying to comprehend the nightmare that unfolds before your very eyes, suddenly, in the distance, you see two small rectangular objects emerge from hyperspace. Because your sensors are offline, all you can do is visually assess what from your distance looks like two, grey, floating bricks. But as they gradually become bigger, you feel the nausea as it creeps up on you, when you realize that what you are seeing are two Mandalorian Dungeon Ships.

* * *

**O**n the bridge of the _Dauntless_, one of five remaining disabled Republic Warcruisers, Captain Darian Ragnal did not need to imagine anything for the reality was far worse.

"Captain!" the frantic voice of a young Lieutenant, who forty minutes earlier had been an Ensign, rang across what was left of the bridge.

Ragnal was still not quite sure of the new Lieutenant's name, but he was certain of one thing: that he was young, too young to serve on the bridge and far too young to be in such a hopeless situation. The young man, more a boy than a man, had been promoted after a stray proton torpedo, intended to bring down the port shielding, penetrated the ship's hull-plating in a gigantic plasma explosion that took down half the officers on the bridge. The Captain could hear the edge of terror in the young man's voice as he called again.

"Captain—" the sentence was cut short after he tripped in the darkness, and stumbled on something that was either a stray piece of missing bulkhead or, what used to be, someone's body part. Judging by the way the young soldier recoiled after recovering his footing, the Republic Captain concluded it to be the latter. The boy stopped short when he came within visual range of his dark-skinned commanding officer, noticing how the man's blood-soaked jacket stood draped over his left arm that hung limp at his side.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" Captain Ragnal asked. When the young man did not respond, he raised his slightly. "_Yes_, Lieutenant?" he questioned. "Do you have something to report or not?"

The young officer grimaced as he swallowed hard, trying to remember the reason he had screamed across the ruined bridge, besides being scared out of his mind. His frightened eyes bulged as his throat wrestled with the words.

"Lieutenant!" Ragnal shouted at the already shaken soldier. "If you have something to say, I suggest you say it. Otherwise, get back to your post and stop wasting my time!"

"Sir! Yes, Sir!" the Lieutenant's automatic reply jumped his wits back into gear, and he immediately remembered why he had left his post. "Sir, I just received word from Chief Technician Valen, Sir. He says he was able to rewire the hyperspace transponder and hook it up to one of the back-up power cells."

"Well that's good to hear," Ragnal replied sourly. Out of the all of the five Republic Warcruisers, the ship with the heaviest losses was also the only one able to get the hyperspace transponder working. With the Mandalorians bringing down their jamming field to coordinate with their boarding parties, his crew could send a distress signal. The Republic Captain sighed and hopelessly shook his head. _Not that anyone would receive it in time to help us_. He turned to the Communications Officer, who sat by what remained of his console, another low-ranking officer who had been promoted in the last desperate moments of battle. Using spare parts, loose wiring, a replacement laser emitter and a cannibalized droid, the new comm officer had managed to scrap together an impromptu, long-range, binary laser signal emitter which he had plugged into a T-2 unit. This awkward setup now served as the _Dauntless'_ only means of communicating with its other stranded sister ships, with the exception of the hyperspace-transponder. Other naval personnel had managed to hook up similar devices aboard their Warcruisers. There was now a constant stream of back and forth communications, between the remaining damaged Republic vessels. "Ensign"—he quickly corrected himself—"Um I mean Lieutenant Braeri." _Damn_. "Tell Captains Toland, Chaltan, Ansaca and Mesrop to immediately start transmitting whatever messages they've collected from their crew via binary signal."

"Sir?" Lieutenant Braeri replied. "Captain's Toland and Ansaca are dead, and the crew of the _Arbiter_ is not responding."

The Ragnal snorted; he was really getting sick of hearing of who was dead and what was not working. "Lieutenant?" he said in an exasperated voice.

"Um yes, Sir?" Braeri asked as he turned his head and looked at the Captain; a long gash on the left side of the young officer's forehead was just barely visible in the dim bridge lighting.

"From now on," the Captain ordered. "I don't want to hear about who's dead and what's not working, instead tell me who is _alive_ and what _is_ working." _Even if it is a very short list_, he thought.

The rest of the remaining crew took a long look at their captain.

"And that goes for all of you!" he continued angrily. "Is that clear?"

An affirmative murmur, heard over the backdrop of the bridge, was the only response he received.

"Good," the Republic Captain nodded impatiently. "Now let's get back to work." The work he was referring to was the enormous task of getting the bulk of the messages composed by the crews of the remaining Republic Warcruisers, upon realizing they could not escape and that they would, most likely, be captured. The remaining crew of the _Dauntless_, now the only ship with a hyperspace transponder, had to compress these messages down and send them, via hyperwave signal, to the ships that had safely retreated. And they were racing against time. Soon the Mandalorian boarding parties would break through their defenses. And they had to send the signal before they were taken prisoners.

* * *

**D**uring the Sith War, the emergence of ion weaponry made it possible for a single, perfectly placed, ion cannon shot to fry an entire vessel's circuitry, bringing down every system, including life support. Since then, among the changes made to all capital Republic Military craft, seen as an improvement by most technicians and safety inspectors, was the placement of vital life-support systems on redundant circuitry powered by a generator, independent of a ship's main power source. However, the Mandalorians, as many civilizations along the Outer Rim had already learned, were quick to use anything to their advantage. And in this particular instance they did just that: using ship schematics obtained from bribed, disgruntled Republic Military personnel, the boarding parties of armored warriors introduced several hundred liters worth of compressed stun gas into the ventilation systems of each of the damaged vessels before exchanging blaster fire with the Republic Army battalions that defended them.

Like spiders caught in their own web, whether high-ranking or low-ranking, whether gunner or technician, whether ship's captain or petty officer, every single Republic soldier without a breath mask was immediately knocked out by the noxious fumes. Off in the barracks, panicked crew members trampled over one another reaching for their breath masks. In the gruesome and chaotic medical bay, where triage had been set up to deal with the massive numbers of wounded and dying soldiers, nurses slumped over, surgeons fell unconscious at their operating tables, medic and patient a like succumbed to the gas before any of them realized what was happening. The few that remained awake were left to face the waves of armored intruders.

And there was very little that could be done to stop them. Clad in thick armor, that could only be pierced by repeatedly-fired blaster shots at the same exact target, almost impossible to do with moving targets in a barely lit, smoke-filled environment, the Mandalorians quickly overran any resistance. Even when what remained of the Republic troops retreated for cover, there was no place to hide. Equipped with helmets that adjusted to detect heat on the infrared spectrum, the invaders left no intact part of the ship unsearched, overwhelming anyone who stood in their way.

When the smoke finally cleared, the Republic soldiers who had engaged their attackers in what they thought to be a futile struggle of life and death, awoke to find themselves disarmed, shackled and held captive on the very decks of their own ships.

* * *

**L**ieutenant Commander Norland, of the Republic Warcruiser _Arbiter_, turned his head trying to comprehend the words of the two Mandalorians that were conversing in the corridor leading to the hangar bay. They looked to be the leaders of the boarding parties that had stormed the ship just thirty minutes earlier. The two masked soldiers paid little attention to the hundreds of shackled Republic soldiers that sat lined up against the wall on either side of the corridor. He quickly looked down again, to avoid getting any unwanted attention from one of the menacing Mandalorian guards that loomed nearby, holding a long-barreled assault rifle ready to fire. Every ten meters of corridor had at least one invader pacing up and down like a starved wolf about to jump. Several soldiers had already been shot for staring in one direction for two long, another for trying to scratch and itch, and still another who could not keep his hands from shaking.

When the armored guard turned his back again, Norland quickly made eye contact with his commanding officer, a weary-eyed, raggedy-looking soldier in his forties. "Sir?" the Lieutenant Commander whispered trying to get the Captain's attention—"_SSHhh!_" someone shushed at him as he felt a stray finger jab him in the back.

Turning around, Norland saw two angry, brown eyes, glaring right at him. "Quiet, you imbecile!" Commander Ferrik's voice was an icy, muffled whisper. "You want him to get tortured!"

In his eagerness, Norland had forgotten standard military procedure for war prisoners: avoiding any formal address that would give away the identity of one's commanding officer and giving only one's name, designation and identification number upon interrogation. He scowled looking back at Ferrik in an exasperated snort. "I was just trying to see if he could tell what those two were saying," he shot back.

"Use hand signals instead!" the other officer replied.

Norland shook his head incensed, glaring down at the heavy, black cuffs clasped tightly around his wrists and ankles. "And how the hell do you suggest I do that!" he demanded in his most indignant whisper, "with these damned permacrete binders on?" By now he was angry enough to relish the idea of using the Commander's head to bang out a coded question to the Captain against the nearest bulkhead.

"They're a lot worse that that, Norland," another whisper joined the conversation.

The two men turned their heads to see that Captain Chaltan staring back at them. "They're Mandalorian Manacles," he said softly. "Made from specially tempered iron."

"Mandalorian Iron?" the Lead Crewman Vilmos who, who sat up against the opposite wall, asked as he cast a bewildered look down at his own set of matching, decimeter-wide cuffs. "I saw an exact duplicate of these at Galactic Museum on Coruscant when I was a kid. I never thought I'd ever be wearing them, though. Is it true what they say about the iron, that it's indestructible?"

The Captain nodded. "Nothing will go through it," he added quietly. "Not even a lightsaber."

"That's not what I heard," Commander Ferrik shot back. "I heard that twenty years ago a Jedi hacked his way right through the Royal Mausoleum on Dxun, which was completely made of the stuff."

"Must have been _some_ Jedi," observed the crewman.

"That was no Jedi," the Captain corrected him. "His name was Exur Kun and _he was a Sith Lord_." _A dead one, thank the Force_, he thought. Deep down, he felt a touch of dread remembering that the Sith were behind the last Mandalorian assault on the Republic. _That's just what we need_, a stray sarcastic thought sneaked up on him, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. _Another one of those running amok_. If there were any sentients whose extermination the galaxy could rejoice over, they were Sith. Chaltan shuddered as he banished the series of dark thoughts that invaded his mind like phantoms belched from the darkest pit of hell.

Meanwhile, they all heard the voice of one of the Mandalorian Commanders speaking in a harsh-sounding language: "_An ibic adaani, hett nu ai Jetiise kyr'amyi. Ni nu atini_," said one.

"What did he say?" Norland whispered to the Republic Captain.

The weary Captain closed his eyes, sifting through what he could remember of the odd-sounding language long ago when he had been a young ensign assigned to guard the handful of Mandalorians, captured after their failed attempt at taking Coruscant. "He seems to be complaining, about having to take us as prisoners," he winced. "Something about all this trouble or fighting, and no killing."

"Why don't they just let us go, then?" the Vilmos asked.

"Sshhh," the Captain replied, trying to make out what the other Mandalorian Commander was saying.

"_Mand'alor e'r su_," the other Mandalorian said in response to his companion's statement and then he added a few more words that Chaltan could not hear over the Republic crewman's voice.

"Wow. I didn't know anyone could learn that drivel!" exclaimed the crewman. "I thought you either have to be Mandalorian, a frigg'in genius, or just plain weird."

"It's called Mando'a," the Captain replied. "Will you please stop talking so I can figure out what they said they were planning on doing?"

The middle-aged soldier listened more intently shaking his head at his own inability to breach the enormous language barrier. "They're going to divide the prisoners," he said. "He said that Mandalore wants the sick and injured held separately from the rest."

"That can't be right," Norland declared. "Mandalore died twenty years ago, on Dxun; the Onderonians confirmed it."

"They found a few dead bodies on the surface of the moon, which were believed to be Mandalorian remains," the Chaltan said. "But they never found any armor. And they did not explore the entire moon. Dxun is believed to be cursed, so they never did a thorough investigation. And who could blame them? What idiot would want to go poking around in the final resting place of a Sith Lord?"

"What did they say they're going to do with us?" the crewman asked. As he said this a loud clamping noise shook the corridor.

Chaltan looked up. "I think they said they're going to transfer us to a holding vessel."

"What about the wounded?" Ferrik asked.

"I can't figure out what they said they were going to do with the injured prisoners"—"You'll find out if you don't shut up!" one of the Mandalorian guards exclaimed as he grabbed him by the back of his collar.

The guard made a fist was just about to punch the Republic Captain when he paused after hearing an incendiary remark: "So brave against a bound and unarmed opponent. At least he's not civilian target, unlike the last time you damned Mandies got stupid enough to attack the Republic!"

Ferrik glared defiantly at the armored warrior who dropped his intended victim and focused all his rage on a new target.

For an instant, the Mandalorian Crusader was stunned with rage. "And how would you know, you cowardly Republic _di'kut_!" he roared as he grabbed Ferrik by the front part of his dirty officer's uniform.

As Chaltan lifted his, now bruised, head off the floor, his grey eyes widened upon seeing his Executive Officer's black, scuffed, synth-leather boots dangling several centimeters in the air.

Satisfied to see that Captain Chaltan was uninjured, Ferrik stared directly through the armored warrior's visor but said nothing more.

"By your example!" a younger voice shouted.

The Mandalorian turned his helmet just in time to be met with a furious spray of spittle right in his line of sight.

Still being held in place by the guard's heavy grip, Ferrik frowned as he saw the young crewman on the opposite side of the corridor raise a clenched fist as far as his heavy manacles would let him.

"You crusted flargbag!" the Vilmos yelled. "Everyone knows what happened on Coruscant and Onderon: how the mighty Mandalorians turned tail and ran like a bunch frightened schoolgirls. Too bad you schuttas didn't stay wherever the hell you went."

"Your precious Republic's days are numbered, boy!" the Mandalorian hissed in response. "As are yours!"

"Bring it on, Tinman!" the crewman jeered. "If you want your sorry armored asses kicked half-way across the galaxy, we'll be happy to oblige. We did it before and we'll do it again. You'll see!"

"And who's going to do that boy? Your pitiful excuse for an army?" the guard sneered as he dropped the soldier he was holding for emphasis. "Your pudgy Senate bureaucrats? No, let me guess—The Jedi: the vaunted saviors of the Republic. " He turned and laughed mockingly as he slowly came near the defiant Republic crewman. "They don't seem to be in too much of a rush to save you, or anyone else, for that matter. Just where are they now? Perhaps they know already that it's not worth the effort, and that the Republic, like you, is already dead. And soon it will burn," he spoke louder for everyone to hear. "You'll all burn. It will take more than a bunch of dreamy-eyed mystics with their fancy-colored flashlights and complacent philosophizing to quell the oncoming inferno. It will take_ blood_. Rivers of it—oceans of it. By time your precious Jedi realize this, it will be already be too late; the Republic will fall because does not have physical and ideological strength to make that kind of sacrifice—none of you do!" With that the Mandalorian punched Vilmos right in the face, sending him flying into his companions.

By now, a few other Mandalorian guards had overheard the exchange and joined their companion who was pointing his rifle randomly, ready to shoot anyone that twitched. "The next one of you _Jetiise_ slime that gets it into his dense skull to shoot his mouth off will get it shot off!"

Meanwhile, one of the Mandalorian commanders stormed down the corridor yelling "Alright! On your feet you _chakaar'e!_. We're moving out!"

The shackled Republic soldiers slowly rose and started shuffling down the corridor in led by their armed captors. The young Republic crewman stumbled as he tried to recover from the blow he had received, reeling with pain and breathing with great difficulty. He looked down at the hand he had used to cover his face and saw that it was smeared with blood. The armored brute had broken his nose. A few of his fellow soldiers tried to help him up, but gave up quickly as soon as the guards threatened to shoot them if they made any further attempt to help.

"Hey you!" another Mandalorian yelled at the fumbling young soldier. "Get in line!" the warrior grabbed the boy from behind and shoved into the group of cowering captives.

The long line of chained Republic detainees hobbled down the shadowy corridor to the airlock where a docking tube connected the disabled Warcruiser to the massive Mandalorian Dungeon Ship looming over it.

From space, the larger prison ship, hovering over the smaller Republic vessel, resembled a hungry predator wrapping and clenching its jaws around the neck of its dying prey.

Inside, the armored Mandalorian guards kept watch like vultures ready to swoop in and randomly pick off anyone in the slow stream of prisoners when the line came to a sudden halt.

"What's the blasted hold up!" one of the guards roared as he stormed over to where the line had stopped.

A single Republic solder had stopped a few meters short of the entrance to the docking tube, and he could not keep from shaking as he expected the guard that started yelling in his face to shoot him at any moment.

"Well!" the angry warrior's demand was loud enough that several of the soldier's nearby companions shrunk away in fear. "What is _your_ problem, can't you _Jetiise_ rejects even march properly?"

Despite the heavy weight of his binders, the soldier trembled uncontrollably. He managed to mumble something as he pointed downwards to the corpse of another soldier that obstructed his path.

"Yeah? So?" the warrior asked. "What's the matter? Haven't you seen a dead body before? You're gonna be one pretty soon anyway!"

The soldier continued pointing down at his feet and then at the corpse. "I—I wa—was g—going t—to s—ay t—that"—but he was immediately cut off by the impatient Mandalorian.

"Y—You were going to say what!" the masked guard mocked.

The frightened soldier tried to complete the sentence as the Mandalorian brought up his rifle.

"I don't have time for stuttering idiots!" he screamed as he shot the man right in the eye.

The, now dead, soldier immediately slumped over his fallen comrade, but, to the Mandalorian guard's dismay, shooting the idle prisoner had not solved the problem of getting the line of captives moving again.

"Now what!" the guard fumed, more annoyed than ever as the next prisoner stopped at the two bodies that obstructed his path.

"He was trying to say that the binders on his feet were too heavy to allow him to step over the body. He couldn't get around it—none of us can," the next prisoner said as he glared at his captor and shook his head.

"Oh," the Mandalorian said, realizing the whole reason the line was that none of the prisoners could move more than twenty centimeters per step nor could any of them lift their feet further than a few centimeters off the floor in their manacles. He immediately kicked both corpses out of the way. "Alright! _MOVE!_"

* * *

**T**o walk the deck of a Mandalorian Dungeon Ship is to bring the meaning of misery to a level you never thought you could fathom.

Immediately upon exiting the docking tube, you are transported to a world without hope. Ear piercing sirens shriek everywhere. You feel weighed down and not just by artificial gravity levels that have been altered to make it impossible for you to escape. The manacles that are wrapped around your wrists and ankles are now twice as heavy as they were when you first found yourself wearing them. Your back is bent under the weight of your binders. The resulting poor posture has two effects: first, inevitably you feel a shooting pain down your back as it supports the weight of your binders and second, you cannot breathe properly. It is almost as if your captors have thought of every single thing they could possibly do to crush your spirit. Under the stress of not knowing your fate and fearing for your life, knowing that your captors have already shot several of your companions, your heart rate rises working with the overall lack of oxygen resulting from being hunched over to make you even more sluggish.

Every step you take is a new lesson in pain. And the reward for stopping the line of prisoners, or for even hesitating, is a blaster blot to the back of your head. As you struggle to maintain your footing, part of you wants to give up as some already have. At least you know that if you die the pain will end.

* * *

**C**ommander Ferrik stumbled and found himself falling forward until someone in front of him broke his fall. "Um, I'm sorry," he mumbled but he could not here his own words over the screeching sirens.

When he looked forward he saw Captain Chaltan's face silently mouthing the words: "It's alright it is not your fault. We just have to keep going."

_Why keep going? What for?_ Ferrik squinted as he tried to make out the size of the room, but could not. The bright lights, which kept flashing on and off, made it impossible to tell what was happening. In the flickers of blinding, white light he saw the Republic Captain in front of him, Lieutenant Commander Norland in back, and several heavily armed metallic spider-like figures moving about the line of captive soldiers, pulling out people as they went. Among the now a second line of captives that was parallel to the first, Ferrik saw the young crewman who had taken the brunt of on of the Mandalorian guards' rage for him on board the _Arbiter_. The hollow, hopeless expression on the young man's face as he clutched his profusely bleeding nose, made the Republic commander's stomach sink.

In the equally spaced intervals of darkness between the flashing light, Ferrik could also see red lights flicking from the heads of the spidery figures. He quickly realized that they had to be droids. The Mandalorian guards had remained aboard the _Arbiter_ while these vicious-looking prison droids, who were unaffected by the doubled gravity, took over the handling of the prisoners.

"Keep moving," Ferrik managed to hear one of the droids metallically-timbered voice over the high-pitched sirens. "I have no compunction of terminating any of you!" The awkward sounding threat was then backed up by the droid firing a few indiscriminant blaster shots into the line of prisoners.

The droid that had fired into the crowd of captive soldiers then immediately turned around and spoke to one of its companions and began issuing orders. "You take group two to the designated evacuation point," it pointed the other another line of, what looked to be, only injured Republic soldiers.

"Acknowledged," one of the other droid replied. The large spider-like droid went to the end of the parallel line of prisoners. "Go this way!" it said pointing with the long barrel of a blaster that was mounted to its chassis.

The group of injured soldiers slowly hobbled along following the droid. Those that could not walk were carried by some of their healthier companions.

Meanwhile, Captain Chaltan stepped forward to find a large blast door opening at the end of the corridor.

"In you go!" said the droid commander. "And hurry up!"

The Republic Captain did as he was told: he shuffled into an area that appeared to be a large holding cell. Nineteen other captives followed him in before the door slid shut again, muffling the noise of the sirens that blared in the corridor.

Inside the cell, Ferrik breathed a sigh of relief after the door shut. "Oh thank the Force!" he exclaimed. "At least we can't hear that terrible noise."

"What?" Norland shouted momentarily deafened.

Another soldier turned to him and yelled loudly, "He said we're at least away from that terrible noise!"

"Noise?" Norland frown could be seen in thin sliver of pale white light that streamed in from the top of the cell. "What noise? I can't hear a damned thing."

"Of course you cannot," Chaltan replied. "The siren's probably damaged your hearing."

"Huh? What was that?" Norland asked again before he suddenly wrinkled his nose. "Ugh! What is that smell!" he demanded as he pulled his jacket collar over his face.

"It's coming from our refresher," said another soldier pointed to a small hole in the middle of the room that was only fifteen centimeters in diameter.

"You've got to be kidding!" Ferrik said. "That's just disgusting!"

"No," Captain Chaltan said. "It's exactly like what the cells designed to simulate war camp conditions were like in the Officer's Training Program.

"Ugh!" the Commander exclaimed as he shook his head. "That figures; I was on injury leave that week at the Academy."

"It smells worse!" another soldier said. "It smells like someone died in here."

Chaltan surveyed the room until his eyes came to rest on what looked like a child-sized lump in the corner. "Someone _did_ die in here," he said grimly as he pointed to the cell's back left corner. "Look."

All nineteen Republic soldiers turned their heads in the direction the Captain was pointing.

Ferrik hobbled up to the lump and reached over to turn it around. He jumped back when he realized that what he had touched was the dead, shriveled husk of, what used to be, a human being. "Aahh!" he screamed has he wiped his hands on the trousers of his dirty uniform.

Chaltan approached the remains of the prisoner in the far corner of the cell and after a few minutes, was able to make out the coloring of the patchwork of rags the body was wrapped in. He sighed and shook his head after making out two distinct colors: red and black. The Republic Captain shook his head, "That's an old style Republic uniform," he said quietly. "The kind we used to wear." As he put the body where he had found it, a small metallic object slipped out of its body hand and made a small _ting-a-ling_ noise as it hit the floor.

Reaching down, he picked up what a grimy-looking piece of jewelry that had once been a shiny, metal identification bracelet. All Republic Military combat personnel had them. He wondered why the soldier had taken the bracelet off. That was when he saw that one of the corners on the identification tag had been worn and what had caused the damage: in large bold Aurebesh letters the phrase "HELP ME!" was scratched into the cell wall. "One of the MIAs the Republic never found after the Sith War," the Captain said miserably as he placed the bracelet back with corpse and reverently covered its head with its tattered jacket. "His family probably never found out what happened to him."

" Yeah, just like our families won't know what happened to us," another of the soldiers observed caustically.

"Keep the chatter down!" Ferrik ordered.

"Come on Ferrik!" the soldier frowned. "We're all captives; your rank is meaningless here. I don't have to take orders from you anymore."

"Yes, you do," Chaltan replied. "The last thing the rest of us need to hear is stupid talk like that!"

The soldier muttered something under his breath as he shuffled over to one of the far corners of the cell and sulked.

Turning his attention back to Chaltan Ferrik cringed. "You mean that—_he_," corrected himself as he looked at the corpse. " —has been _here_ for _twenty years_?"

As the Republic Commander spoke, a thin mist started to pour out the air vents.

"What the—" Ferrik stopped as he heard the distinct hissing noise. "Gas!"

"Not again!" Norland exclaimed.

"I hope the boys in group two are faring better than we are," the Chaltan said as he fell over.

_They have to be_, Ferrik thought before he also collapsed. _What could possibly be worse?_


	6. Chapter 6: Breaking Point

Everything has its limits. . ." Mark Twain

**T**he screeching alarms and the flashing lights momentarily relented when blocked out by the tenebrous walls of the large turbolift. Crewman Vilmos stared blankly at thirty injured Republic soldiers packed tightly against one another. Even in the darkness he could see the look of pain and anguish on each face. For the moment, the modified artificial gravity had reverted to normal so that the Mandalorian prison droids could move the long line of injured captives to a different deck of the Mandalorian Dungeon Ship. But for many, the momentary respite had come too late.

Vilmos was not what normally counted as combat personnel. Most Republic Navy soldiers never stepped foot off their respective ships until they went on leave. And beyond the initial training he received when he joined, the Lead Crewman had never once been in a hand-to-hand combat situation. In his head, mixed with the dread and worry of having been captured, was also a sense of indignation, like he had been cheated somehow. _Damned recruitment scouts never said anything about this_, he thought bitterly.

But the spidery droids left him with little time for contemplation. No sooner had the Crewman finished his thought when the turbolift doors slid open to reveal another level. Disoriented from having to walk in dual gravity conditions in heavy shackles, none of the Republic soldiers could tell whether they were above or below the original deck they had been on.

Groaning as he shuffled down the welcomingly quiet corridor, Vilmos noticed a large blast door lay open revealing a huge, hangar-sized chamber. He immediately realized something was amiss when he saw the droid guards unlocking their prisoners' binders just before shoving them forward through the blast door's threshold.

_That doesn't make any sense_, Vilmos thought. _Why go through all this trouble to put us in irons, just to release us later? And why isn't anyone trying to escape?_ As his turn came to have his own manacles removed, he uncomfortably eyed the multiple blaster rifles aimed at his head. His Mandalorian manacles dropped to the floor with resounding _CLANG_, and he found himself shoved forward into the larger chamber to learn firsthand the answer to his questions.

Vilmos fell forward after crossing the blast door arch. The artificial gravity in the room had been modified to the point where it was impossible for an average-sized sentient to move. The Crewman blacked out once again as a Mandalorian droid reached over and dragged him out of the way of the next prisoner.

After an unknown amount of time, the young crewman awoke to feel something wet on his face. His first instinct was to brush it away.

"_Don't do that_," a calm voice cautioned. "_It's a compress of sorts; it will bring the swelling down_."

"W—where am I?" Vilmos asked. "And who are you?"

"_I'm a medic_," the voice replied quietly. "_And I don't know where we are. It doesn't look like a prison cell; it looks more like a hangar or an airlock or something_."

The young man opened his eyes and saw a large-eared, olive-skinned Sullustan in a Republic medic's uniform bending over him. The gravity in the room had returned to normal as soon as the last prisoner had been brought in.

"H—how'd you manage to get in here without being hurt?"

The medic grimaced a little gesturing to his blood-stained jacket. "_Obviously those droids aren't all that bright. They can't tell the difference between a real injury and someone who just happens to have gotten someone else's blood on them. I was working in the infirmary on the Arbiter when the gas started coming in through the air vents. I got to a breath mask just in time. There are a few soldiers that got put into this group just because they seemed injured, although most are worse off than you. I was able to stuff a few bandages and some kolto syringes in my pockets before the Mandalorians stormed the ship, but that's not going to be enough_."

The Republic crewman realized the medic was correct; he did not have look too far to witness some of the horrible injuries some of his companions had sustained. For a moment he could not turn his eyes from a Republic soldier a few meters away who had shards of bone sticking out through his badly tattered uniform. And there were many others who were even worse. Yet among them, Vilmos also saw several of his peers moving about the room, trying to do whatever they could to make their wounded comrades more comfortable.

"_The more help I can get, the better_," the medic continued.

"But what can I do?" Vilmos asked. "I'm a tech, not a medic."

"_Anything, at this point_," said the medic. "_Anything is better, than just sitting there—even talking helps_."

* * *

**O**ff in the command station, deep in the heart of the Mandalorian Dungeon Ship, _Citadel_, Bendak Starkiller, the Mandalorian placed in charge of the prisoner recovery operation, immediately responded to the droid commander's report that final injured prisoners off the Republic vessel had been loaded into the evacuation point. "Rodger, Emate, on my command return to the main receiving deck for more prisoners."

"Acknowledged," the droid replied as it signed off.

The yellow-armored Mandalorian turned to the crewmate assigned the security console. "Call up the security camera footage from airlock zero one on the main display screen."

"Yes, Sir," the crewman responded as he punched his console controls, bringing up a camera feed showing hundreds of injured Republic soldiers in a large room.

"Yeah, that looks like all of them," Bendak observed.

"Commencing with evacuation procedures," the Mandalorian at the environmental systems console declared. He was just about to push the activation button on his console, when Bendak stopped him.

"What are you doing?" the Mandalorian asked with surprise.

"Making sure you work efficiently," Bendak responded. "You're going to press that button how many times, when you can easily wait until all the compartments are full and decompress them all at once? Besides, I'm not doing anything without the go-ahead from Mandalore."

* * *

**V**ice-Chancellor Antares squinted at his chrono, trying to make out the time in the darkness. Like every other part of the _Vanguard_, with the exception of the medical bay, the briefing room's lighting had been minimized to conserve enough power for the ship to return to Republic Space. _Fifteen hundred hours_, he thought. _I've been on hold for thirty minutes_.

Behind him, one of his Senatorial Guards broke the uneasy silence. "Are you certain it is wise to warn the Ardilonians of the threat, considering they are not on particularly good terms with the Republic?"

"Well, they may not be the friendliest civilization on the Outer Rim, but they do deserve a warning," Antares replied. "After all, just because I'm not particularly fond of them doesn't mean I want them all killed."

"Yes, but you still have to speak with the Supreme Chancellor, Republic Intelligence and Fleet Command," the guard insisted, as two of his more silent companions glared at him for breaching protocol.

The Vice-Chancellor grimaced a bit. "Alright," he said gesturing to his guards. "You can all do your duty by standing guard outside."

As one by one the guards shuffled towards the exit, he quickly announced an exception. "All of you, that is, except Yusanis. I'd like to talk with him."

Yusanis of Echani was in his own right a leader amongst his people, which was why his decision to accept the position of lowly Senatorial Guard in charge of the Vice-Chancellor security detail had raised a few brows on the Echani homeworld. But being a long-time friend and confidant of Antares, he considered it an honor and accepted the request without hesitation. Both he and a handful of his students were accepted by Republic Security, also know to many simply as "R-Sec," which was the Republic agency that oversaw most of the Republic's internal security matters. Anyone in the Vice-Chancellor's inner circle of aides and contacts knew his duties went well beyond the call of a normal Senatorial Guard. Ever vigilant for his friend's best interests, he was Antares' second set of eyes and ears. For, in truth, Antares was far from helpless; having publicly admitted to, at one time, being an R-Sec operative himself.

"I'm aware of my schedule," Antares told him. "But the difference between the Arilonians and the Supreme Chancellor is that she does not have a fleet of hostile Dreadnaughts lurking around in the Coruscant Sector. If the opposite were the case, my priorities would be entirely different."

"I know," the tall Echani guard said as his bright blue eyes narrowed and his bushy, snow-white brows furrowed a bit. "But the Arilonians have dealings with both the Hutts and the Exchange; they are little more than common thugs. Their very government is an experiment in corruption. Why you would go to through the trouble of warning them is beyond me."

"Because, like you said," his friend replied, "their government _is_ an experiment in corruption, and consequently, in warning them I'm doing precisely the opposite of what they would have done for the Republic. We act better because we _are_ better."

As he said this, the holo-projector displayed the face of a large bug-like looking alien, with four antennae protruding from its cone-shaped head. Its large eyes were like two mirrors that reflected Antares' image on the opposite end of the communication.

"Ah, Minister Panante," the Vice-Chancellor's expression vanished beyond the polished and unreadable facade of a master politician. "It has been a long time."

Back at his post, Yusanis studied his friend's mannerisms very carefully. He could tell that Antares was being particularly meticulous about not portraying his sheer dislike of the Ardilonian government.

"Cut the podoo, Antares!" the Ardilonian Minster said crossly as two of his antennae moved wildly back and forth. "Get to the point. I know the Republic doesn't waste its time contacting unfriendly neighbors for no damned reason. You said you had a warning so out with it. And it better not be another one of those allusive threats you're so skilled at making."

Antares snorted just a little. _Good afternoon to you too_, he thought. "On the contrary," he continued. "Your government has been impressively cooperative in reducing the inflow of illegal spice that gets smuggled into Republic Space. We're not going to confiscate any of your freighters unless, of course, there is a change in policy on your end."

"Really?" the Ardilonian said. "Is that the reason for the flagrant display of military force not ten light years from my borders?"

"That was a military exercise," the other said. "And since the Vergasso Asteroids do not fall under anyone's jurisdiction, we are well within our right to use that location as Fleet Command deems fit, which is why I have contacted you. Our forces were attacked by a Mandalorian fleet of six Dreadnaughts and sustained heavy losses. I assumed you might want to be warned about the possible threat they pose to your system."

The Arilonian snorted in amusement. "You mean to tell me that somebody finally managed to defeat a Republic fleet?"

"Yes, what of it?" Antares' eyes narrowed in annoyance.

"Well it's about time!" Panante said with glee. "Maybe that'll teach you condescending Republic politicians the long-needed lesson to keep your fleets within the confines of your space and not meddle in the affairs of others."

"Meddling?" the Vice-Chancellor arched his eyebrows slightly and then eased a moment. "I hardly call patrolling space routes that we maintain and stopping the influx of illegal materials meddling. Although perhaps there is some sort of misunderstanding. _Perhaps we would understand each other better if I spoke in your language_," he added switching into a perfectly inflected Ardilonon.

Off in the corner, well out of sight of the holocam, Yusanis grimaced. _I wish he would not do that._ As a diplomat, Antares firmly believed the best way to get along with people was to learn their language, although sometimes his friend wondered if it was simply to prevent eavesdropping on his private conversations.

"_There is no misunderstanding_," the Ardilonian replied darkly. "_It doesn't matter which language you use or how nice your words sound. It still doesn't change the fact that the Republic has no business crossing beyond its borders. Your ships are not welcome in the Bajic Sector, Vice-Chancellor. And maybe if the Republic wasn't so busy playing intergalactic police or catering to their silver-tongued and deep-pocketed politicians, it would have realized this by now. I'm glad someone finally had the courage to stand up to your fleet. Good day, Vice-Chancellor!_" With that the transmission ended.

"That didn't go too well," Antares mused.

* * *

**T**hrough the viewscreen display aboard the _Citadel's_ control center, the sharp angles of Mandalore's brushed Mandalorian Steel helmet looked even more ominous.

"It's true, Mandalore," Bendak continued. "The ship is full to capacity; we're loaded down with prisoners. But most of our goods have been damaged."

"Then dump them," the Mandalorian Commander said gesturing with his fist. "There's no point in keeping worthless prisoners alive. Besides each of those Warcruisers has at least four-thousand troops on it. With all the injured captives taking up space, two Dungeon Ships will not suffice."

"Yes, Mandalore," the subordinate Mandalorian nodded. Bendak knew, as Mandalore did, that calling for a third Dungeon ship would further delay the onset of their planned assault on Ardilo. And it was bad enough that the _Apocalypse's_ interdictor engine would not be repaired in time for the upcoming invasion. Turning back to the crewmate operating the airlock controls, he quickly nodded. "You may commence with the evacuation procedure."

"Evacuation protocols initiated," the Mandalorian crewman replied as he entered the decompression sequence into his console. "Beginning decompression cycle!"

Turning to the main environmental display board, Bendak watched as the indicator lights for each of the Dungeon Ship's thirty airlock compartments went from green to red as each emptied their contents into the black void of empty space.

* * *

**A**midst hundreds of captured solders, the one medic worked furiously at trying to remove a piece of shrapnel lodged deep inside a Republic Army Colonel's chest. "_Just a few seconds longer_," the Sullustan said reassuringly.

"Is it out yet?" a weary soldier asked. "I want to see."

"_Hold him down_!" the medic barked at the two soldiers on either side of their companion. "_I'm sorry, Sir, but moving around to get a closer look isn't going to help me help you_," the Sullustan medic added cautiously to the wounded Republic Colonel. "_You're going to have to take my word that it's not as bad as it looks._"

_Yeah, it looks a lot worse_, Vilmos thought trying to keep his eyes away from the bloody mess where the medic was working.

Under normal conditions, the medic would have put off removing the shrapnel until he could safely operate in a sterile environment. However the stray piece of metal that pierced the man's armor and uniform when a Mandalorian fragmentation grenade detonated punctured his lung causing air and blood to leak into the plural lining, which in turn put pressure on his heart. Without immediate surgery, he would suffocate. And without any anesthesia, the patient was in agony.

The Republic Army Colonel groaned, as the medic finally dislodged the troublesome piece of metal, setting it down on the deck and immediately getting to work on closing the hole with a laser cauterizer.

"There," the soldier who was acting as the medic's assistant said triumphantly holding up the bloody, decimeter-long spike of metal that had just been pulled from the Colonel's chest.

Vilmos watched as the older Colonel's blue eyes widened as if amazed that something so small could cause so much pain.

"Hmph," the older soldier gritted his teeth. "I've had worse!" he declared.

"Of course you have, Sir," Vilmos heard the other Republic Army Private's reply.

"Yeah, not like these squeaky Navy ferry boys that sit around all day," the Colonel observed looking at Vilmos' broken nose. He managed a chuckle but quickly stopped; it hurt just to laugh. His reference to Vilmos resembling a ferry boy was part of grand tradition of insults exchanged between the subdivisions of the Republic's Armed forces. Hand to hand combat situations were usually the area of expertise of the Republic Army, rather than the Navy.

Vilmos grimaced. "Very funny, Sir." In his opinion, jokes that the Navy was more of a ferry service than an actual fighting force were often unfairly made.

In the background an alarm buzzed and a low rumble was heard, like the lifting of heavy machinery.

"Hey? What was that?" the Republic Army Private asked glancing towards the ceiling.

"_What was what?_" the Medic asked not looking up from his work.

The Crewman's eyes bugled in horror was a section of what he thought was a wall of the chamber began to move. The widening gap between the wall and the floor began to swallow everything that was not bolted to the deck, including people.

"We're in a decompressing airlock!" Vilmos shouted in terror, but already the air in the room had been sufficiently depleted that he could hardly hear his own voice, much less hear the screaming of his crewmates. Then chillingly calm realization hit him just a few moments before the unconsciousness that came with oxygen depletion settled in: he was going to die and there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it. The last thing the Republic Crewman saw was the cold, black blanket of space as it enveloped around his body.

* * *

**O**n board the _Dauntless_, Captain Ragnal frowned as he gazed through a portable sensor unit out at the other disabled Republic ships.

"If we're going to be ready for them, we need to understand how they overwhelmed our defenses so quickly," Major Drackson, who was in command of the battalion of Republic Army Infantry stationed on board, continued.

Still staring through the sensor unit, which was really not meant to be used in space, the captain noticed something odd: a single Mandalorian transport was the first to dock with one of other damaged Republic vessels. On the aft portion of the Republic Warcruiser, he saw a team of Mandalorians emerge from their transport carrying what appeared to be a large container. "What in the universe are they doing?"

"Let me see," Drackson said as Ragnal handed him the device. Looking through it once more, the Major finally understood what was happening, "they are headed towards the air scrubbers; they must be putting something into the air on board to incapacitate the crew."

Ragnal sighed. "I guess that explains how they were able to take over the _Arbiter_ so quickly," he said pulling his communicator out of his pocket and turning it on. "This is Captain Ragnal speaking," his voice went over the personal communicator frequencies aboard the ship. "Any and all personnel are to get to their breath masks immediately."

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Braeri eyed the looming, blocky hulk of the Mandalorian Dungeon Ship in the port viewer. "Um, Sir," he called to the captain. "There's something you should see."

"Now what?" the Republic Captain muttered as he cast a sour look in the Lieutenant's direction.

"It's probably _more_ good news," Drackson said.

"What is it Lieutenant?" Ragnal asked.

"It's that Dungeon Ship, Sir," the young Lieutenant said as he flustered. "It's spewing some kind of debris."

"What!" the Captain asked incredulously as he stared at the Army Major.

"Could be mines," Drackson suggested as he handed him the sensor unit while they both walked to the port side of the bridge.

"They're too small to be mines," the Lieutenant interjected.

"Not only that," Ragnal added. "But it would be very stupid to lay out mine-field right smack in the middle of your fleet, especially when we're not going anywhere."

"Well they aren't mines, whatever they are," the Major observed as the Captain peered through the sensor unit and adjusted the sensor control-knob, magnifying its range. "Mines are rounded; these things look x-shaped."

That was when the color drained from Ragnal's face and his stern expression vanished.

"Captian?" Braeri asked. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"In a way, I have," came a sullen reply. "I've seen lots of them."

"What?" Drackson questioned. "What are you talking about?"

The Republic Captain shoved the sensor unit back into the Army Major's face. "Have a look for yourself!" his voice trailed off to dreadful whisper. "_Those_ aren't mines," he said shaking his head in galled horror. "Those are people! _Our_ people!"

* * *

**C**aldar Ordo shook his head with annoyance while steering his basilisk through the floating rubble that was left over from the battle that had ended an hour earlier. Eyeing the sensor readouts of the warmount's controls, he scowled beneath his helmet. _It would have made more sense to hold off on getting rid of the detainees, after we finished recovering our own_. The droid's sensors were now picking up minute traces of life scattered throughout the debris field, from the prisoners that had been sucked out of the _Citadel's_ airlocks, which would make it even harder to find Canderous. And what made it worse was that his son's armor was the same color as many Republic uniforms.

Then, all of a sudden the sensor board started flashing, confirming the presence of Canderous' helmet communicator.

"Canderous?" the Ordonian chieftan called into his helmet communicator, trying to mask the concern in his voice. After all, if his son turned out to be fine, the younger warrior would never let his father hear the end of how he "was getting soft in his old age." But Caldar thought the exact opposite; after so many battles, he felt he was simply becoming smarter.

After several seconds of garbled static, the sensors finally honed in on Canderous' lifeless-looking form floating aimlessly in space. The only thing that saved the younger warrior's life was the fact that Mandalorian armor suits doubled as vac suits. Yet it was not enough to prevent an oxygen leak after being shot repeatedly with a blaster.

Securing his incapacitated son to the back of his warmount's battle harness, Caldar saw where Canderous had pulled off his remaining Crushgaunt and tried to fit it over his injured right hand to slow the escaping gasses from inside his armor. As he fired the warmount's engine boosters to quickly return to his ship, Caldar only hoped the makeshift patch had worked.

* * *

**C**aptain Ragnal glanced across the bridge, eyeing the remaining senior officers on his ship. Normally, they would have met in the briefing room, but due to a hull breach, that part of the vessel remained cut off.

"Sir," the Chief Medical Officer said shaking his head. "I think your idea is ludicrous. As a doctor I can't possibly agree with such a course of action."

"Doctor Lorynn? How many crew members have you treated today and how many deaths have you already entered into your datapad?"

"I stopped counting when the death toll reached two thousand," the doctor said darkly. "I'm more concerned with the living rather than the dead, Captain."

"We're all dead anyway!" Major Drackson exclaimed. "Once those boarding parties take over the ship, it's only a matter of time before they kill its crew." He pointed towards the bridge's viewport for emphasis. "You saw what the Mandalorians did to the _Arbiter_, and most of their crew was intact. They didn't have half the problems we do."

"I'm supposed to save lives, not take them!" Lorynn shot back.

"Tell that to the frozen soldiers out there!" the Commander Estrick added. "How many more crews will die just because you happen to disagree?"

"We don't have all the facts!" the other snapped. "How do we know that's the entire crew of the _Arbiter_?"

"Does it matter?" Lieutenant Braeri asked suddenly feeling self-conscious among the older members of the crew. "Even if they kept part of the crew, they would be kept for information. And once they are no longer useful, there's nothing holding those Mandalorians from doing the same thing to them as well."

"He's right," Ragnal added. "No matter how hard or how bravely we fight, they will overwhelm us. Even with a full, healthy crew, each of those Dreadnaughts carries upwards of twenty thousand soldiers. We won't be able to survive against those odds anyway. The real question is not so much about whether or not we're all going to die, it's about when and how." He turned his attention to the ship's Chief Technician, a thin bald man who was standing a few meters away from him. "Chief Technician Valen thinks we have a good chance of taking out one of those Dungeon Ships."

"That's correct," Valen chimed in gesturing towards the viewport. "You all see those large cylindrical objects on the port side of that Dungeon Ship?"

The crew muttered an affirmative.

"Those are fuel tanks," the Chief Technician said almost triumphantly. "Both the primary and secondary hydrogen tanks are fully exposed without any protection whatsoever. It's a huge design flaw from a strategic standpoint, but you also have to keep in mind that these are not combat vessels. They do not have any of the heavy armor reinforcements those Dreadnaughts have. A large explosion in close proximity to the port side of one of those Dungeon Ships will rupture both fuel tanks culminating in an explosion engulfing the entire vessel."

"And everything next to it," the doctor added. "Including, this ship and everyone on board."

"That's right," Valen acknowledged.

"Am I the only one who here with enough sense realize your idea is insane?"

"If it means slowing the pace of the Mandalorian advance, and taking down a ship that is meant to carry eight thousand of our soldiers, then the benefit outweighs the cost—a cost that will be incurred anyway. How many of your patients do you think will survive once this ship is boarded?" Ragnal asked as he shook his head. "But if we can make them think twice before boarding a Republic ship then it's a sacrifice I would gladly make. However, that is not my decision alone. Let's have a show of hands," he said, his voice carrying over the rest of his crew. "Who favors the plan?"

Quietly, each member of the crew slowly and reluctantly raised his hand in a show of support.

"All opposed?" the Captain asked.

Doctor Lorynn found himself outnumbered.

"I'm not deciding without full agreement from all the superior officers," the Captain said grimly.

The Chief Medical Officer uncomfortably fidgeted realizing that all eyes were him. _Damn it! This is wrong!_ "Oh, alright!" he exclaimed finally. "You all want to turn this ship into a fracking lawn-dart, there's nothing I can do to stop you. But I don't have to help you either. I abstain from voting, and I don't want any part of this!"

Ragnal sighed, "I'm sorry to hear that, Doctor." If the escape pods hand not been disabled he would have never made this decision. But in his eyes there was no other alternative. "Anyone else disagree?" he asked looking around the bridge but finding no further objections.

"It's settled, then," he said somberly looking at Valen. "How soon can you set the charges placed?"

"With cooperation from Major Drackson's engineering squads, thirty minutes," the Chief Technician replied grimly.

"Get it done," the other ordered. "Contact me on my communicator when everything's in place."

"Yes, Sir," Valen said, quietly turning to leave, followed by Major Drackson.

"The rest of you are dismissed," the Captain said finally.

As the group of combined Republic Army and Navy officers dispersed, Ragnal made eye-contact with Lieutenant Braeri.

"Sir?" the Comm Officer asked.

"Have you finished sending those transmissions through the hyperspace transponder?"

"Yes, Sir," Braeri answered.

"Before you take the transponder off-line, I want you to send one more message."

"Understood, Sir."

* * *

**N**o sooner had the gigantic metallic arms of his warmount touched down in the _Apocalypse's_ primary hangar when Mandalore was greeted with news by one of his many warriors.

"Yes, Ydrel?" Mandalore asked as he dismounted. "What is the status of the capture operation?"

"It goes well, Mandalore. I have word from the _Citadel_ that they've just consolidated their storage space and the _Baneful_ is still empty. We're also in the process of taking over our second Corellian Warcruiser," the warrior replied as he began walking along side his commander. "Although, I've just received a rather bizarre communication from one of the Republic vessels. It was in the most unusual form: old binary code."

"Not too unusual," Mandalore observed as he continued walking towards the hangar bay exit. "It's part of standard Republic military procedure to use binary code in the event of a communications breakdown. What was the content of the message?"

"The message was sent by someone by the name of Ragnal, who claims to be the captain of the transmitting vessel," Ydrel continued.

"And what did he want?"

"He said he is willing to hand over the Republic Military's computer encryption codes in exchange for us leaving his crew unharmed," the warrior answered.

The Mandalorian Commander stopped in his tracks. A new thundercloud of anger threatened to burst, but his rage quickly turned to disgust. "The Republic will change their encryption codes anyway on account of those ships being captured. Those codes are worthless, except for slicing into the computers on the taken ships once we get them up and running."

"Nevertheless," Ydrel replied. "It could save us some time."

"In exchange for letting a pathetic traitorous coward have his miserable excuse for an existence along with the rest of his despicable crew," Mandalore spat. "Out of the question! Our engineers would have sliced through their codes anyway! I want that ship boarded immediately."

"Yes, Mandalore," the warrior acknowledged.

"We'll show those wretched Republic dogs how the Mandalorians deal with cowards!" Mandalore hissed angrily.

* * *

**O**n the _Dauntless_, Captain Ragnal gazed through the viewport reflectively for what he knew to be the last time.

"It looks like they're taking the bait. We have at least thirty-six boarding shuttles on their way, and that Dungeon Ship is turning," Major Drackson said looking through the portable sensor unit. He turned toward the Captain and offered him the sensor unit. "You want to take a closer look?"

Ragnal shook his head. "I know they're coming, and I've seen enough of them to last me a life time." He bit his lip slightly releasing the bitter double significance of what he had just said. Suddenly the Comm Officer interrupted this dark train of thought.

"Sir," Lieutenant Braeri reported. "We've just finished sending that final message to Admiral Halan's ship."

"Understood," the Captain replied. "You can return to your post."

"Yes, Sir," the young Lieutenant said as he turned to walk away.

"Oh, Lieutenant?" Ragnal called.

"Yes, Sir?" Braeri asked as he turned to face the Captain.

"Thank you," the Captain said.

A thin smile graced the young man's lips. "No, _thank you_, Sir."

Ragnal smiled back warmly in acknowledgement. All of the bridge crew replacements had performed more than admirably, and it worked to make his last duty harder.

Meanwhile, a member of Valen's engineering crew stepped over the battered bridge doors and made his way over to the captain. "Sir," he said handing him a standard comlink. "This is the triggering mechanism. When you activate this comlink it will emit a radio frequency that will signal the charges to detonate. Chief Technician Valen says you should not activate it until we have been fully boarded and the ship is docked with one of those Dungeon Ships."

_Yeah, take as many those Tinheads down with us_, Ragnal thought to himself. "I understand," he said. All they had to do was wait.

* * *

**W**henever a Mandalorian boarding party docked with a hostile vessel, there was never a doubt in any warrior's mind that he would encounter resistance and face the prospect of his own death. A Mandalorian Crusader simply would not have it be any other way, for he knew that there was no glory without danger.

But as the numerous armed squads of Mandalorian invaders penetrated the hull of their next target and stormed aboard, the conquest proved to be anticlimactic. Despite having anticipated the stun gas attack, every Republic soldier they encountered surrendered without a struggle.

The Mandalorian Commander in charge of the operation found it particularly disconcerting. He had encountered many others who had chosen to die fighting rather than be taken prisoners. And then there were the Deralians, whose die-hard tenacity completely contradicted their behavior in the face of inevitable conquest. Whispers of the Deralian encounter still circulated among the Mandalorians: how their sparse numbers simply did not justify the effort and how Mandalore had been surprised by the turn of events. Thankfully, most Mandalorians were not quite was superstitious as their leader.

Then, just as the loud clamping noise of the Dungeon Ship, _Baneful_, latched onto the damaged Republic Warcruiser, a rather bizarre scuffle occurred amongst the prisoners. Clad in irons, two soldiers wearing distinctly different Republic uniforms started brawling, engaged in struggle of life and death.

"Damn you, Lorynn!" a dark skinned soldier said striking the other in the jaw. "You said you would not interfere!"

"Yes, under those circumstances I couldn't. But things have changed," he said putting pressure on his opponent's obvious wounds.

The other screamed in pain, but wretched a small cylindrical object from the aggressor's grasp.

"Lorynn, you traitor!" one of the other troops yelled. "Unhand the Captain this instant!" he roared, hoping that making his captors aware of his commanding officer's identity would spring them to action.

That was when several other Republic soldiers joined the fray.

The Mandalorians were surprised. Their prisoners seemed to be bent on killing each other without any assistance from their captors.

The line of prisoners broke into a chaotic twisted tangle of wriggling arms, legs, and other body parts.

Captain Ragnal was desperately trying to crawl away from the center of the scuffle. He was about to activate the trigger mechanism on the comlink when he felt something grab a hold of his leg. Turning his head, he saw Doctor Lorynn clinging on to his ankle in a vice-grip.

But Lorynn was so focused on the Captain that he did not notice Major Drackson sneaking up behind him.

That was when the Republic Army Major brought his Mandalorian Iron manacles as a noose over the doctor's throat.

"Ack—" Lorynn gurgled and then in desperation called to the Mandalorians, his index finger flailing wildly, pointed at Ragnal. "Shoot him!" Then he coughed as Drackson tightened his grip on his throat. "He's going to blow up the ship and everyone on it!"

"Shoot_ him_!" Captain Ragnal said gesturing towards the doctor. "He attacked his commanding officer!"

"Don't listen to him!" the doctor strained as the Mandalorian Commander eyed the comlink in Ragnal's hands. "He'll kill us all! Shoot him! Shoot him now!"

The other Mandalorian guards looked to their commander, who by this time was exasperated with the situation. "Enough of this!" the Mandalorian said, the last thing he need was a group of rioting prisoners. "Shoot them _all_!"

Immediately, a chorus of blaster fire erupted from all around as the Mandalorians opened up on the still struggling mob of Republic soldiers with repeating blaster-rifles. When the smoke cleared, there were fourteen dead and over a dozen injured.

The fateful little cylinder rolled out its deceased possessor's hands and onto the floor of the corridor.

The Mandalorian Commander in charge of the mission was in the process of bending down to retrieve it when, out of nowhere, a younger Republic officer jumped out from among the injured, tackled the larger Mandalorian to the ground and fetched the comlink.

As the third, fourth and fifth blaster shot penetrated through his uniform, and pierced his already aching body, the Republic soldier lifted his head up, slightly gazing obstinately at his own killers and smiling with the secret satisfaction that came with the comfort of knowing that in a few seconds both he and his murderers would be even. "_For the Republic!_" he shouted defiantly as his finger squeezed the comlink's transmit key.

Deep in the bowels of the crippled Republic Warcruiser, several carefully-placed charges exploded a few seconds later, collapsing the containment field around the engine reactors and rupturing the vessel's massive fuel reserve, generating an expanding sphere of super-heated gas incinerating everything in its wake.

* * *

**M**andalore had just passed the sliding doors of the bridge of the _Apocalypse _when a humungous orange blossom lit up the starboard viewports. He just barely turned his head to inquire what had just happened when the flash of light was eclipsed by a second explosion more massive and more brilliant than the first.

The sensor operator panicked as his console board began to screech. "Mandalore! We just lost the _Baneful_!"

"How?" the Mandalorian Commander demanded not even trying to tear his eyes off the debris floating from where no less than five seconds earlier there had been a Dungeon Ship. "What happened!"

"We don't know, Sir!" the sensor operator replied frantically.

"_Then you better find out!_"

* * *

**P**acing back and fourth over the length of the _Vanguard's_ briefing room, Antares was on edge. Gone was the mask of perfectly composed, white-gloved politician. This was the Antares his peers and aides knew behind closed doors.

Behind him, in the center of the polished conference table, where not six hours ago, there had been laughing and merry-making, was a multiple-channel holo-com projector displaying three life-size images. One of them as the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, the most recognizable, and, arguably, the most powerful being in the galaxy, a stately red-skinned Twi'lek female by the name of Ayannah Sanura. Not only had Sanura at one point been a slave girl, but her rise to power as a politician was due in part to her staunch criticism of slave trade. Not far from Sanura's image was the ghost-like projection of Vartan Tabari, who being Director of Republic Intellgence, was supposed to be the most informed man in the galaxy. And just a meter away from Tabari's hologram was the serious simulacrum of High Admiral Vinicus, who after leading a Republic Fleet that accompanied Ulic Quel Droma and Nomi Sunrider following the coup on Cinnagar and countering the Mandalorians at the battle of Courscant, quickly rose through the ranks to become the face of Republic Fleet Command.

"_This_ is a disaster!" the Vice-Chancellor exclaimed, flinging his hands in the air for emphasis. The look in his eyes was one of severe weariness and extreme concern. There was also a detectable hint of outrage in his voice that was checked only by his fierce resolve. "We've lost eleven ships!—_Eleven_ of them!"

"I know Admiral Halan is running the numbers, but my office just finished with their estimate now," Tabari's image responded as he was handed a datapad. As he glanced at it briefly, his brown eyes widened for just a split-second before returning to his normally calm and calculated demeanor. "Keep in mind this is a generous estimate based on the worst-case scenario."

"Yes," Antares said dismissively. "Please get on with it."

"Based upon the size of Halan's fleet, the types of ships, and the initial report you sent us, Vice-Chancellor, we are looking at roughly twenty-thousand casualties," the director spoke quietly. To someone living on a planet with a regional and national governments, such a number would constitute death and devastation on an unimaginable scale in a mere five hours, but to a galactic government, spanning thousands upon thousands of star systems, comprised of hundreds of trillions of sentients, such numbers were a grim reality. In deep space battles whenever large capital vessels holding thousands of beings were captured, everyone on board was considered a casualty because of the dismal chance than anyone would survive.

"That still will not be enough to convince the Senate to action," the Chancellor Sanura cautioned. "At least not given the current state of things."

"Why not draft a proposal and let there be a up or down vote on it?" Antares asked. "If nothing is done, the Administration risks being portrayed as incompetent."

"Because, ultimately, we still need a two-thirds majority for a formal declaration of war that would need to accompany any large-scale military response. And we still don't know for certain what attacked the fleet," the Chancellor said.

"I already said what we are up against," Antares countered frustratingly. "I have sent enough security holocam footage to make a documentary."

"You've sent us footage and sensor readings indicating that Halan's fleet was attacked by a fleet of six Dreadnaughts whose markings and descriptions match ships from the fleet lost at Foerost twenty-years ago. You've also included footage of what I have confirmed to be Mandalorian Basalisks," Vinicus observed. ""The problem, Vice-Chancellor, is that you can't convince the Senate to action over a fleet of six warships. You know as well as I do that there are entire fleets of pirates that roam the Outer Rim far larger than that."

"Besides," Director Tabari added, "the Mandalorians were defeated when they tried to invade Onderon. It's extremely unlikely the fleet that attacked Halan's Fleet were the Mandalorians that invaded Republic Space twenty years ago and overran Coruscant under Ulic Quel Droma's command. "

"I wouldn't make such a big assumption, Director," Vinicus replied. "I remember facing the Mandalorians at Courscant. We did not defeat them, they withdrew because for some reason the Sith decided against sending reinforcements. They are not to be underestimated. The data matches Antares' theory."

"But there's still nowhere near sufficient evidence to suggest a massive invasion that would justify a military response. It's far more likely that Halan's fleet was attacked by pirates, who somehow managed to get their hands on Mandalorian weaponry," Sanura added.

Antares grimaced. "And these same pirates managed to get their hands on six military Dreadnaughts, including one with an interdictor prototype engine-mount. They figured out how to use it, and trained their troops to coordinate so perfectly that they outwitted and outsmarted an entire fleet of professional soldiers," he shook his head. "That makes a lot of sense," the tone of his voice was caustically sarcastic. "Unlike most of the distinguished Senate, I have stepped outside the warm, fuzzy and artificial surroundings of the Core Worlds long enough to see how the pirates that plague the Republic's hyperspace routes operate. Pirates attack trade vessels. They strike hard, fast and then, withdraw quickly with their bounty. They do not enter into a prolonged engagement. They do not attack in force, and they sure as hell do not have the level of discipline displayed by our attackers today. Whoever these armed invaders were, they _were not_ pirates."

"The Vice-Chancellor has a point," the Director nodded. "Pirates would have nothing to gain from attacking a Republic fleet. I recommend dispatching a second fleet to the Vergasso Asteroids to recover what remains of the fleet and to investigate."

"And this time make it a Heavy Battle Squadron," the High Admiral added.

The Supreme Chancellor seemed bit a disturbed. "You're talking about sending a contingent of at least thirty heavily armed capital vessels outside Republic Space without Senate approval."

"We don't need approval," Antares observed. "It would be a recovery mission in response to an unprovoked attack. We're not interested in starting a war; we are simply recovering what remains of our people."

"A recovery mission with at least twelve Dreadnaughts?" Sunara asked skeptically. "That's enough fire power to take over a system. You realize this is going to give the anti-military faction in the Senate leverage."

"Well, I'm sure they'll be very heartened to hear the military shrunk by twenty-thousand troops today," Antares observed. "By the time word of this reaches the HoloNet, those Senators who even suggested that we demilitarize and hand the defense of Republic Space to the Jedi would be wise to reconsider their position."

"A fleet that size offers us a means to gather collaborating evidence," Tabari suggested. "Should your attackers go after the recovery ships as well, they would be destroyed. If they attack with an even larger fleet, that should be more than enough for the Senate to decide they are a sizeable threat."

"Can you hear yourselves?" Chancellor Sunara said. "You're already anticipating going to war over this. I'm surprised at you, Vice-Chancellor Antares, you always said you were against the prospect of war. Whatever happened to diplomacy?"

"If they wanted to talk, then why attack our ships in the first place?" As Antares asked this, a light rap was heard at the door. "Please come in, Admiral."

The briefing room doors slid open revealing the weary Admiral with a grim expression on his face. "Good afternoon, Madam Chancellor, High Admiral, and Director," he said respectfully. "I apologize for the intrusion, but my XO and I just finished going over the casualty counts."

"And?" Sunara asked. "What were your findings?"

"Eighteen thousand, four-hundred and fifty-six soldiers unaccounted for. Almost thirty-five percent of my Fleet Squadron. Five Warcruisers and six Hammerheads along with their respective crews and commanders," Halan said softly.

"And the pilots?"

"Included in the final tally," Halan continued. "Out of five hundred and four fighter pilots, less than a hundred survived. And those were our very best pilots, Chancellor, from all over the Republic's Fleet."

Sunara sighed shaking her head so that her lekku trembled and jerked back and forth. "The recovery force is to be dispatched at once with a Heavy Attack Squadron as High Admiral Vinicus suggested. I'm calling an emergency meeting of both Senate Defense and Finance Committees in light of this new development. Since the matter is of the utmost importance, we will meet you on Corellia. Until then, Vice-Chancellor, Admiral, may the Force be with you and the families of our fallen soldiers." With that the Chancellor signed off along with the High Admiral and the Director.

"Um Vice-Chancellor?" Halan asked as Antares walked over to the beverage bar left over from the reception held that morning.

"Yes, Admiral?" Antares asked, offering him a drink.

"No, thank you," Admiral said. "I'm still on duty until we make it to Corellia."

"Very well," the Vice-Chancellor said as he poured himself another glass of Corellian Brandy.

From the distance, Yusanis wondered if this time he would actually drink it, instead of swirl the amber-colored liquid around and stare at it as was Antares' fashion.

"Admiral, what's wrong?" the Antares said. "You seem distressed?"

Halan grimaced. "I just received a compressed hyperwave signal containing letters from the crew members of the stranded ships we left behind," he said was he placed a data chip in the holoprojector slot. "There was a holo-recording enclosed, from Captain Ragnal of the _Dauntless_."

"I remember him, I met with him briefly during the tour of your fleet," the dark-haired Vice-Chancellor added. "I was impressed."

"I know. He was fine a Captain and a good man."

Antares' strong brows met together. "Why are you referring to Captain Ragnal in the past tense?"

The Admiral sighed, "This message explains everything." He flipped the switch on the holoprojector and immediately an image of the dark-skinned man wearing a tattered and bloodied Republic Captain's uniform appeared in the center of the table. "As Chair of the Defense Commitee you are privied to seeing it before I pass it along to Fleet Command."

"This is Captain Darian Ragnal of the Republic Navy Warcruiser _Dauntless_. What follows is a description of a sequence of events after my ship and four others were disabled after suffering serious damage and heavy casualties at the hands of a Mandalorian fleet of five Dreadnaughts. In light of the fact that we could not jump to hyperspace and our standard communications were knocked off-line, our Comm officer was able to contact the other stranded ships in binary laser code. At approximately fourteen-hundred hours, my Chief Technician was able to repair the ship's hyperspace transponder. Upon hearing this, I ordered the Comm officer to alert the other captains, and it was decided on the basis of a consensus between myself and the other four captains, that the _Dauntless_ would transmit whatever messages the other ships could get across to it by binary signal back to the _Vanguard_. Within a few minutes of this, my crew and I identified two vintage Mandalorian Dungeon Ships on an intercept course. Shortly afterwards, scores of Mandalorian boarding parties began docking with the _Arbiter_, adding what Major Drackson believes to have been a substance that could either kill or incapacitate into the ship's air supply. After docking with the _Arbiter_, one of the Mandalorian Dungeon ships began expelling debris, which we confirmed as being bodies of Republic Soldiers."

The Captain paused briefly and then continued. "Whether they had been executed prior to being dumped into space, we could not tell. Even as I speak, the Mandalorian boarding parties are in the process of taking over yet another Republic ship and butchering even more of our soldiers. And I am calling this butchery because it is butchery, the evacuation of prisoners without a vac suit stands in clear violation of the Alderaanian Accord for the humane treatment of war prisoners," he sighed. "The status of our ship is critical. Half my crew is dead, and many of those that remain are injured. Upon analysis of the Mandalorian Dungeon Ships, my Chief Technician informed me of a flaw in their design: that an explosion near one their fuel tanks could take out an entire ship. After consulting with my peers aboard the other vessels, the conclusion was reached by me and most of the senior crew, that under these circumstances where the chances of our own survival practically are non-existent, that we should plant changes around our own fuel containment area, and detonate our own ship once it has docked with one of the Mandalorian Dungeon Ships with the purpose of destroying it. The crew and I both believe that in doing so, we will slow the pace of the enemy's capture operation, thereby increasing the chances of those who are still on the other vessels of getting home. My crew and I have reached our breaking point. Our situation is desperate and we have no better option in the face of certain death. We're not heroes, we're just soldiers doing our duty. We all accepted to prospect of our one deaths when each of us joined the military, but what we cannot accept is a meaningless one at the hands of aggressors who attacked for no reason and who seem intent on killing just for sport. Please tell our families that we love them and will miss them. Long live the Republic and may the Force be with us all. Ragnal Out."

Antares was livid. "When did you get this?" he asked the Admiral.

"It arrived fifteen minutes ago," Halan replied.

"And why wasn't I informed immediately?" the Vice-Chancellor asked.

"Because the original message was suffering from degradation as it was being sent via hyperwave transmission," the Admiral replied. "And it took the Comm Officer that long to piece it back together."

"Who else knows of it?"

"My XO and I, and the Comm Officer who worked on it."

"I want you to retransmit this message to the Chancellor immediately, along with Fleet Command and Republic Intelligence," the Vice-Chancellor said.

"Yes, Vice-Chancellor," the Admiral said as he was about to leave the room.

"Oh, and Admiral?" Antares asked.

"Yes?"

"See to it that transmission is heavily encrypted," he added. "The last thing we need is HoloNet News getting their hands on it."

"Yes, Sir," the Admiral said as he walked out of the room.

_Eighteen thousand four-hundred and fifty-six casualties!_ Antares finally took his first sip of brandy, but the liquid got stuck by the lump that had formed in his throat and rolled down his esophagus in one big, burning, painful ball which quickly turned to nausea. Here he was sipping his vintage Corellian Brandy from fancy crystal, both of which had been purchased with public funds, while, out of sheer desperation, the men and women of the _Dauntless_ had blown themselves to bits. _And the Senate would hesitate sending another fleet to recover their remains . . ._ Somewhere, deep inside him, something snapped, and anger came bubbling to the surface of a long dormant volcano. The adamantine floodgates opened and for a split-second that seemed an eternity the Vice-Chancellor lost his temper.

The room's silence was broken by the sound of crunching glass.

Suprised, Antares looked down and saw his fist clenched around what remained of the tumbler.

As his guards quickly rushed to his aid, the Vice-Chancellor sighed. It had been along time since he had lost control like that. It meant that he had to be even more vigilant.

"Let me see!" Yasanis snapped as grabbed Antares' hand.

"It's fine," the other said. "It doesn't hurt."

"Let me see _now_!" the Echani Guard demanded.

Antares opened his hand, letting the remaining bloody pieces of crystal fall to the floor.

"Briefing room to the Medical bay!" another of the guards called on his communicator. "We have an emergency!"

"Is that really necessary?" Antares asked as he shook his head.

Yusanis said nothing as he frantically grabbed a cloth napkin from the beverage bar and proceeded to wipe away the rest of the blood so that he could assess his friend's injury. But when he had finished wiping, there was no cut and no break in the skin at all.

Grabbing, the communicator out of the other Senatorial Guard's hand, Yusanis flipped the transmit switch. "Briefing room to Medical Bay, disregard that last request," he said. "False Alarm."


	7. Chapter 7: Introductions

"All things truly wicked start from innocence," Ernest Hemingway.

**W**hen the Halls of Knowledge on Ossus were evacuated after Aleema of Krath used ancient Sith magic to trigger a cataclysmic explosion that consumed the Cron Cluster, the Jedi had only a few hours to pack twenty-thousand years of history. With no time to scour the city-sized collection of books, scrolls and artifacts, they simply grabbed whatever they could carry and fled the stellar holocaust that scorched the surface of their peaceful world.

There was little wonder why, even twenty years later, Jedi scholars on Exis Station were still busy sorting, sifting and cataloging mountains upon mountains of Jedi teachings. And even when the Jedi Temple was razed to the ground, almost four thousand years later, Exis Station would still contain many forgotten ancient Jedi artifacts.

Fully engulfed in their work, few Jedi scholars had time to look down and spot one they thought to be a very young Padawan as she quietly walked by.

And standing at well under a meter tall, Revan was easily overlooked. Yet what the little toddler lacked in size she more than made up for in curiosity. For a half-hour she aimlessly wandered the repository, counting doors. She gazed in wonder at the colorful transparansteel-paneled dome of the cathedral-like auditorium where the Jedi had met years earlier. And she meandered in and out of the room's alcoves lined with etched crystalline plaques that detailed the events leading up to and after the destruction of Ossus. Being unable to read, her young mind could only scratch the surface of their content, gathering that they were not intended to simply look pretty and that the people who had made them thought them to be very important. She paused only when realizing the main corridor went around in a circle. Then, overwhelmed by the childhood impulse to see what was on the other side, she started checking doors.

Aware that the little signs next to the doors probably meant something, the child concluded that the odd scribbles, "PULL," indicated places where she was not allowed to enter; while other odd scribbles, "PUSH," indicated places where she could enter. And that was what she did: she opened the very first door with the symbols "PUSH" next to it, blissfully unaware of the sign that said "UNSORTED STORAGE AREA: REPOSITORY STAFF ONLY."

Revan found herself in a large dark room with shelves that rose almost up to the ceiling, each haphazardly piled with all manner of books, scrolls and miscellaneous artifacts. The Jedi had not allowed cleaning droids to service their unsorted holdings for fear of damaging the priceless treasures that were still waiting to be found; this resulted in thick layer of fine dust that covered everything in the room. This same dust disagreed with the young explorer's nose causing her little eyes to water and triggering an uncontrollable paroxysm of sneezes that kicked up a thick mist of even more dust, which in turn, led to even more sneezing.

Recovering from her eighth consecutive sneeze and finding that she had nothing to wipe her runny sniffly nose, besides her jumpsuit sleeve, Revan quickly started looking for a suitable replacement. But as she wandered the aisles of five-meter high shelves, something else drew her attention.

It was very faint at first, nearly unnoticeable and easily dismissed by older incurious eyes, but the closer she came to it the brighter the pale light, on top of one of the shelves, became. By the time the child reached the shelf from where it originated, the entire aisle was lit by eerie blade-like rays of green-white light. As if hypnotized, the youngster's wariness faded, and she cast off all caution as her tiny fingers grabbed a hold of the shelf-railing and began to climb, compelled both by wonder and the warmth of the light that grew as she drew nearer.

Up and up she climbed, heedless of any danger and ignoring the intermittent creaking of the shelf made under her shifting weight, steadily reaching a height over five times her own. And there, on the very top shelf, she saw it: a cube of blinding green-white light, just a finger-length out of reach.

Pushing off the edge of the shelf below her with her left foot, using the very tips of her toes, the youngster finally closed the distance between herself and the odd glowing object. In spite the heat it gave off, she found it to be surprisingly cool to the touch as she awkwardly grasped it, barely managing a steady grip on the cube before her shoe slipped and she began to slide. Like a squirrel frantically struggling to recover its faltered footing, Revan scrambled with her remaining freehand finding a steady wooden knob only to discover that it was just the end of a dusty scroll that slid with her as she fell.

She hit the floor with a _thump_ muffled by the thudder of several books that had joined her pilgrimage to the bottom of the aisle, coming to rest on her rear end and bringing up a big mushroom cloud of dust. Although thankfully uninjured, despite a sore bottom and a wounded pride, she rose to her feet and, for a moment, just stood there, as if stunned, deliberating whether or not to burst into to tears.

But before she could decide, the cube she held tightly in her right hand vibrated, and the image of a furry, long-snouted alien studied her intently. "Greetings, young Padawan," a male Caamasi said warmly. "I believe this module's internal chronometer is malfunctioning: it says that it has been about seven-thousand three-hundred and ninety-nine days, sixteen hours, thirty-eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds since prior activation. But it will readjust itself if you will please state the current date and time."

Taken aback, Revan quelled her fear by remembering that the alien resembled one of the statues she had seen near the repository's entrance. "Um, I don't know today's date is," she spoke softly. "What calendar are you using?"

"The Standard Republic Calendar," the image replied, "that every Republic world uses."

"Hmm," the toddler frowned contemplatively, "I think my Mama said something about a year in Republic Time being only long as half a monsoon season, but I'm not sure."

The image studied the surroundings. "Well, then perhaps another student in this wing would be happy to—" the alien's voice trailed off a bit as if coming to a surprising realization— "this is not the Antiquities Wing of the Halls of Knowledge!" he exclaimed. "Where on Ossus are we?"

"We're not on Ossus," the child declared. "Jolee said it was"—she paused, searching for the proper word— "evacuated?" she looked up quizzically at the image, not quite sure if she pronounced it properly.

"Evacuated?" asked the perplexed alien. "But why?"

"Jolee said the stars in the Cron Cluster exploded," Revan spoke as if reciting a story. "And that the Jedi had to leave there. And that's why they came here."

"Exploded!" the Caamasi hologram repeated shockingly. "How could ten middle-aged stars explode just like that?"

"I don't know," the youngster shrugged. "That's what I was told."

"And this place," the hologram continued, "what is it?"

The child looked around her and then back at the hologram. "A repository," she answered. "Did I say that right?"

"Yes, you did," said the hologram. "Then the Order survived, thank the Force."

"The Force?" she asked curiously.

With that, the hologram's pupils widened in surprise. "Have you not been instructed on the nature of the living Force?"

Revan shook her head.

"How could that be if you are a student?"

"I was told I'm going to live with the Jedi," the child replied. "Does that make me one?"

"Yes," the image responded, "it does. You must be strong in the Force; otherwise you would have been unable to access this holocron."

Revan's eyes narrowed suspiciously as she studied the figure before her, "If you're a hologram, how come you act like a real live person?"

"Because, at one time, I was a real person," the image answered. "In some ways, I still am. My name is Baledor Halakwi, Jedi Master, and gatekeeper of this holocron."

"How did you get small enough to fit in there?" the child asked moving the holocron trying to look for an opening underneath, slightly disturbing the image in the process.

"Oh!" the gatekeeper exclaimed in surprise as his image scrambled. "Please do not do that; it disrupts the holo-emitters."

"Oops!" Revan quickly turned the holocron back to its original position. "Sorry! Is that better?"

"Yes," the gatekeeper replied. "I am not the real Baledor Halakwi; he became one with the Force in the year eight-thousand four-hundred, whereas I am a fully interactive instructional program designed to help and teach Jedi initiates of all levels. Yet, I have subroutines that mimic Master Baledor's personality."

"Wow," the child commented as she poked her index finger though the hologram. "So you're a fully sentient artificial life-form."

"Um, no, I am not sentient," the gatekeeper said.

"But you have emotions," she countered. "And you can think."

"I have a subset of preprogrammed behavioral nuances that many associate with certain emotions, but these nuances are activated by a Force-sensitive sentient. I can display only a limited set of behavioral responses. I am incapable of showing any negative or aggressive mannerisms attributed to anger, fear or impatience. In fact, I am programmed to be patient and I can answer almost any question about the Living Force as long has it relates to any content I have stored in my database."

"_Almost_ any question?"

"Well, yes, I am also programmed to gauge a student's level of proficiency and, thus, will only reveal age and level-appropriate material. Besides, the body of knowledge pertaining to the Force is simply too large to be contained in a single holocron, and, as vast and as varied as the Jedi teachings are, we may never have full knowledge of the Force."

"Why not?"

"Because the Force is so infinite one could study it for a thousand lifetimes and still fail to fully understand it, nor should one believe that they can. The belief that one has fully comprehended that nature of the Force has been an unfortunate combination of folly, hubris and madness on the part of many Jedi over the millennia which has had many regrettable results for the Jedi Order, the Republic and the galaxy as a whole.

"Then why study it at all, if you can't understand it?" the child asked perceptively.

"Because, little one, the Force is in everything and in everyone; the Force _is everything and everything is the Force._ And if you cross an unfamiliar river without first discerning its depths and shallows and you will fail without reaching your goal."

Revan pursed her lips together trying to take in the gatekeepers bewildering words, but she was still unsatisfied with his response. "But don't all rivers go into a sea or ocean or larger body of water anyway? They go to the same place, so they all have the same goal. What difference does it make?"

The hologram paused a moment, studying the child's response. Every single Jedi apprentice for the past twenty-thousand years had heard that same utterance before their very first lesson, and, as each student was unique, so each responded to it differently. Among the more common responses recorded in the holocron's records was the interpretation that the statement was a warning to heed the lessons of one's master without question. But Revan's reaction was more novel, betraying a clear affinity for independent thought that could not be laid to rest with a simple formulaic answer. A living Master would have probably taken the child's answer to be disrespectful and down right impudent. Yet as the delicate controls inside the crystal structure analyzed and reanalyzed her words, they could pick up no trace of vehemence, and if there was any, it was well below the detection levels of the holocron's behavior analysis protocols. "That may be true," the gatekeeper said slowly as if the interactive sequencing that generated his image was being pushed to its very limits, "for, indeed, as all things are part of the Force so all things rejoin into the Force. But how one reaches the goal, the choices one makes, and the journey as a whole is even more important."

"But _why_ if all things are in the Force, why take the journey at all?"

"A good question," Master Baledor mused, "but a question only you can answer. For each Jedi the journey is different."

"Why?"

"Because the Force is infinite and manifests itself an uncountable number of ways."

"_Why_?"

"There are many legends that try to answer your question, but I can only give you one," the gatekeeper said. "It is the legend often told to young apprentices, like yourself, at the start of their training. . . "

Still a sore from her fall, Revan seated herself down, placing the holocron on the floor in front of her.

The gatekeeper continued: ". . . before there was a beginning or an end, there was the Force, and the Force was all, as the Force is all"—with that the child's eyebrows met together in an obvious frown that stopped hologram mid-sentence. "What is the matter?" the Master Baledor asked.

"Oh, nothing," she grimaced impatiently. "I think I've heard this story before, or something a lot like it."

"It is possible," the gatekeeper admitted. "Almost every known culture as something similar, but perhaps you should listen before judging it."

"Okay," she sighed a little reluctantly. It sounded like something she had heard the Sooth Singers from her village recite.

"And the Force itself is and was pure limitless energy. And like all conscious living things it sought to know itself and define itself through its limits only to find that the more it knew, the more there was to learn. The more it learned, the more in changed, and the more it changed the more it learned. And through this endless change, reality, as we understand it, came into being and is in a process of constant becoming. Everything partakes in this cycle of change, for all change is a beginning and an ending and a new beginning again. And that is the way of all things."

"Everything?" the child asked. "Including planets and stars and people?"

"Everything," Master Baledor replied definitively, "_especially_ people."

"How do you know all this?"

"At the very dawn of the Republic, on the planet Typhon, a group of scholars and mystics came together to study a positive energy known as the Ashla which they later deemed to be the light side of the Force. Some of them were able to feel the Force, as they could sense the thoughts and intentions of others as well as the stirrings of their surroundings."

"Like I can," Revan responded. "Sometimes I know when things will happen, but I didn't know why."

"Yes," Master Baledor observed. "Many who are Force-sensitive are born with the ability to feel it. Later on, they found that it was possible to alter their environment by channeling it."

"Like getting doors to open by just thinking about them opening?" the child asked, wondering if that was how she had made that big mess in the kitchen of the Station's medical facility.

"That is one of a number of ways that one can manipulate their surroundings through Force," the gatekeeper answered. "In time, you will learn to control it."

"But how? How can you control _everything_?"

"What do_ you_ think, little one, can a single being control and master that which encompasses the entire universe?"

Revan thought for a moment back to how in one week she had learned how vast the universe was compared to herself. "No," she said quietly. "They can't."

"That is correct. Every being is part of a greater whole. That is why the early Jedi Masters quickly learned at all Force-mastery is self-mastery: to have power over oneself, rather than power over others. It is the ability to live in harmony with the rest of the universe and to attune yourself to the Will of the Force."

"How can you do that?"

"By letting go of your own personal valuations and opening yourself up to it," the gatekeeper answered as he carefully observed her. "Close your eyes and reach out; let your awareness drift way from your worries."

Revan did as she was told, closing her eyes and trying to cast out the burning images that had been imprinted in her mind over the past few weeks, but this time found herself unable to let go. The more she opened herself up, the more random images came rushing in. She saw the ruined buildings of her village and the black smoke rising from the pile of bodies in the center square. There were thousands of rampaging, faceless Mandalorians encircling a small rag-tag group of villagers. There were bodies of children scattered on the ground; some wore expressionless faces and others had the undeniable stare of pure frozen horror, that heart-wrenching look that children often have when seeing something so terrible they cannot even describe it. The stifled spark of remaining life in their eyes was just a reflection of the orange flames that poured off the massive engines of the basilisk droids whirling overhead. And behind them, a funnel of black smoke turned into the open night sky. Except the stars themselves were at war with one another as small insect-like projections of light swarmed wildly against the pitch-black curtain of space.

"_Concentrate_," a voice said.

As she focused in further on the sparks of light she saw they were Republic craft engaged with Mandalorian warships, and she knew she was seeing a space-battle. But she could not tell whether it was the one that had already happened or one that was yet to come. Sometimes, in Revan's visions, the future, past and present seemed to bleed together in one dizzying patchwork of sight and sound. And then, right when she could not bear to see any more, the vision shifted and the black of space took the form of shadowy garments that flowed off several phantasms as dark as the abysmal waters of the Deralian monsoon tide at their peak. Her breath staggered like she had been swept away by a wave of ice-cold water that froze and burned at the same time.

She was blinded by a bright red light as she heard the rumbling of black surf crashing against the razor sharp rocks where her mother had leaped to her death.

"_Revan_," she heard a familiar voice calling her and she looked down to see the image of her own mother reaching out to her from the beneath the cloudy water. Revan's mother wore the same ashen mien as she had at the moment when the Mandalorian monster had torn her child away from her cold dead grasp.

Revan wanted to scream in terror, but her throat was stuck. She wanted to run, but she remained frozen in place.

"_You must control your fear!_" the voice said again, loud enough to pierce the vision.

Revan flinched as she found herself alone in the repository storeroom where she had been before, realizing that the voice in her vision was none other than the gatekeeper trying to snap her out of her trance, but the rumbling noise was still there.

"_Control yourself_!" Master Baledor's hologram exclaimed repeatedly as the room shook from wall to wall.

Books fell from their places. Dust rose in columns like white smoke. That was when Revan realized she was the source of the disturbance, and with that realization the rumbling was silenced and the shaking stopped. She shuddered. What had happened? What had she done?

The child was right about to sigh with relief when all of sudden she heard her mother's voice loud enough to make her jump.

"_Revan!_" the hollow haunting echo pleaded.

Revan turned in the direction of the sound only to see the same blinding red light she had seen in her vision. And it was coming from a small glowing pyramid up high on another shelf a few meters away.

* * *

**L**ed down one of the halls that branched out from the repository's antechamber, Jolee felt his neck tense as he followed the Mon Calamari Jedi Scholar to the Lore Master's receiving room. It had been twenty years since he had last been amongst other Jedi. Even as he paced down the hall and passed a series of open doorways leading to chambers where dozens of scholars were busily working away, the painful memories of his youth came creeping back to him like a hot knife cutting the sutures of a festering wound.

His Force-heightened senses could feel many eyes shift and lock on him, and that old feeling of belonging to the Jedi Order came back, reminding him of why he had left in the first place.

No sooner had his foot stepped through the entrance to the Lore Master's chambers when her voice split the silence like a smoothly sharpened spear.

"So," Master Kreia observed with a tone that sounded more like gloat than an observation. "You have returned." Her black eyes purposefully probed his stern gaze for a moment and then withdrew like two winged predators that had found whatever they were looking for.

The faint smile that touched her thin, half-withered lips almost made Jolee cringe; although the past two decades had not been kind to him, as the surviving hairs on the back of the aging Jedi's head could testify, it was as if time itself had taken a lightsaber to the Lore Master's face. "Master Kreia," Jolee stiffened from his ceremonious bow, a gesture of respect from a Knight to a Master; his brown eyes remained steady as he mirrored her scrutinizing stare like the serene surface of a meditation pool. "I see the years haven't darkened your cheery disposition."

"Nor have they improved yours," the older woman shot back. "I trust this time you will be staying?"

The Jedi Knight's thicker lower-lip curled. "Maybe," he said evenly. "Maybe not."

"Then your solitary sojourn through the backwater of space has served only to indulge your self-pity," the Jedi Master declared, "as I warned you it would. Yet the fact that you are here means that you have learned something."

"It means nothing," the Jedi snapped.

"Then why have you returned, if you have not stopped living in the past?"

"I'm not here for myself, Kreia," Jolee's expression darkened. "Even if I was, this is the last place I'd ever want to be." He uncoiled the roll of wax-pencil drawings he held under his arm. "I'm here because past problems have a strange way of showing up in the present," he said holding out the sheet of flimsiplast with Revan's rendition of the space-battle. "This was done a few hours ago; right before there was any word on the Mandalorians attacking that fleet."

"Mandalorians?" Kreia scoffed. "They were defeated—Their leader was destroyed on the moon of Dxun and they were scattered all across the Outer Rim. They couldn't have been responsible for that attack on the Republic fleet earlier today."

"I have proof," the dark-skinned Jedi said emphatically as he handed her the drawing and unrolled more of them. He pulled out the drawing with the attack on the Deralian village. "The invaders on both of these drawings match."

The older woman stared at the two drawings skeptically. "And what precisely are these scribblings supposed to prove?" she asked. "They're just drawings that appear to have been done by a child with a very fertile imagination."

"That's because they were drawn by a child," Jolee declared grimly as Kreia looked down and studied the drawing she held in her hand, "a survivor of a previous raid, who can confirm that the armored invaders who attacked her village were the very same ones who attacked the Republic Fleet earlier today."

"_Impossible_," Kreia pronounced flatly. "If this drawing depicts the battle as it was, how could she have known unless she had been there? It's far more likely the child heard of the attack over a holocast and then drew whatever her impressionable young mind could conjure."

"All things are possible through the Force," the Jedi Knight said stubbornly. "You known that better than anyone seeing you are on the High Council and a historian."

The Jedi Master's eyebrows rose slightly, "The child is Force-sensitive?"

"Obviously," Jolee half-retorted gesturing to the drawing Kreia was holding.

Master Kreia considered this a moment. "Who are her parents?"

"She's an orphan," the Jedi said quietly.

"I see," the Jedi Master twisted her lip slightly, knowing exactly what would follow next: Jolee would insist that the child be taken on as a student, a simplistic solution harkening to the belief that the Jedi where supposed to solve everyone's problems. Kreia believed that the Jedi Order's critical failing was that it already took on too many other peoples' responsibilities while failing to address its own. While the Jedi lived to be in the service of life; learning was part of life. And how could anyone learn anything if the Jedi always interfered by saving people from the consequences of their own actions? Or by saving them from their own misfortune? Surely if anything ever happened it was always through the will of the Force, and life defined itself in the face of adversity and challenge. So many Jedi failed to realize this to own detriment. "So you think that the Order is obligated to interfere?"

"I think we're obligated to help," the other said, "yes, if you want to call that interfering."

"And since when do _you_ speak for the Order on who _is and is not worthy_ of training?" Kreia probed, fully aware of significance of her question.

The Jolee's eyebrows dropped to the point where his eyes were barely visible. Kreia's callous reminder of his decision to train his ill-fated wife and pupil against the Council's wishes was like a kick to the stomach, but he quickly hid his indignation knowing that any emotional response to her question would only earn a quick reprimand that he should control his emotions. And he had dealt enough Jedi Masters over the years to know when one wore her arrogance on her sleeve. "I'm not speaking for the Council," he said monotonously. "I am making a suggestion."

"Yes," the Jedi Master observed acidly. "A suggestion that the Order is the solution to every ill-favored result from every unfortunate copulation."

Jolee snorted impatiently; the conversation seemed to be going nowhere. "I said nothing of the kind," he snapped. "Given the child has demonstrated a clear ability to see into the future, beyond what anyone on the Council has accomplished in the last two decades, I would think that warrants some consideration." Kreia had to have known what Jolee was referring to. It had begun quietly, like a veiled whisper: the influence of the dark side of the Force slowly began to wax over the centuries as the Sith War had drawn near, but even as the war came and went, its tide had not ebbed. Some said remnants of the Ancient Sith Empire were still lurking in the far unexplored regions of space, while there were whispers that the Sith War had tainted the Jedi and that the source of the darkness was within the Order itself. What was clear was that, in the years following the Sith War, dark side monsters, known as Tarentatek, had turned up even in the most remote corners of the galaxy. Three years following the war, the Jedi Order dispatched three knights, Guun Han Saresh, Shaela Nuri and Duron Qel-Droma, to hunt down these abominations in a mission called "the Great Hunt." But this mission ended in tragedy: shortly after arriving on the ancient Sith burial world of Korriban the team disappeared and none of them were heard from again. After the loss of these Jedi, the Order decided against sending any more Knights out to any world seen as a bastion of dark side energy. Although many dark side creatures were slain both during and after the war, the influence of the dark side continued to grow, muddying the flow of the Force to the point that even the most powerful masters in the Order could not pierce the murk that clouded their vision. The Jedi had all but lost the ability to see into the future and Revan's prediction of the space-battle in the Vergasso Asteroids suggested an uncanny aptitude for farseeing that could not be ignored. "You _know_ what I'm referring to," he eyed her.

A nervous grimace pierced the calm of the Jedi Masters demeanor. "Yes," she said finally. "I have felt it, just as the rest of the Council has. The shadow of the dark side is growing, and as its power increases, our ability to see through the Force steadily diminishes." But then her gaze again became hard, "but you cannot honestly believe that this foundling of yours is a solution to the problem. Things are in motion th—" a loud rumbling stopped her mid-sentence. Her eyes widened as the columns supporting the vaulted archway shook like tree branches in the wind.

The concerned murmur of voices coming from the Jedi scholars who were shaken from their work was overpowered by a low reverberation that was not unlike the sound of distant thunder.

The Mon Calamari scholar that Jolee had seen earlier now poked his head into the receiving room's doorway. "Is everyone alright?" the scholar asked as the sound faded.

"What was that?" Jolee asked, casting a circumspect scowl at the teetering light fixture directly above him.

"It must have been a fluctuation in the Station's artificial gravity," the Jedi scholar suggested with self-assured conclusive tone.

"Fluctuation indeed—" Kreia's eyes narrowed in annoyance at the scholar's presumption. Jedi scholars were often students who had shown less promise in their ability to sense the Force, but had demonstrated great academic mastery of Order's history and teachings, "—in judgment. That was no gravitational anomaly. That was a disturbance in the Force."

"A disturbance?" Jolee questioned; it had struck him more like an explosion.

"Yes," the Jedi Master replied, turning to walk out of her receiving chambers. "And it came from the storage area!" she exclaimed quickening her pace just slightly.

Jolee followed her to the point where they both arrived at the Repository's main antechamber, but Revan was nowhere to be found. "She was right here," he said in response to the Kreia's questioning look. "I told her to stay right here."

Kreia let out a long exasperated sigh as she sorted through the choice words she had for the negligent knight. "You mean to tell me that you left an incredibly powerful Force-wielding child, who has no clue as to what she is capable of nor any concept of control, _alone_ without any supervision _whatsoever?_?" the pitch of her voice grew higher and louder with each word. "_Where_ was your brain!"

The last question seemed to echo off the archways and come back to the Jedi like a repeated demand for an answer. "I didn't think—" but before he could finish his reply he was tersely cut off.

"—that is correct," the older woman snapped. "You _didn't_ think," she concluded, turning to walk in the direction of the main corridor.

* * *

**A**fter lying empty for almost twenty years what had once been the _Ascendant's_ infirmary, when it had been a Republic ship, was finally being used for its intended purpose. Back on board his vessel, the Ordonian chieftain, in an unusual display of strength for his advanced years, carried his unconscious son to the all but forgotten section of the Dreadnaught and, not too gently, laid him down on one of the empty surgical tables.

As a rule, the Mandalorians did not practice medicine nor did they commonly care for their sick or injured. Although many of them still possessed rudimentary first aid skills, which proved useful on the battlefield where unattended minor wounds could seriously hinder fighting ability, and they were not above using performance enhancing stimulants either. The Mandalorian code of honor had very strict criteria for such things, and aid to a fellow Mandalorian was rendered on the condition that he would not be a hindrance. But there were still some clan leaders, like Caldar, who preferred to liberally interpret their traditions on a case by case basis. And this case was clearly an exception.

"Get him out of that armor!" he barked to the clansmen that had followed him in, as he removed his own helmet. By human standards, Caldar was considered handsome even with the long scar that cut across his left cheek from the corner of his eye down to his jaw, but his people had long abandoned complacent notions of superficial beauty. He was of slighter build than his son; otherwise, the family resemblance obvious as both father and son had the same dark hair and the same fierce greyish-blue eyes.

With Canderous' helmet off, his father quickly set about to jumpstarting the younger Mandalorian's vitals by injecting several stim packs directly into his neck as the other clansmen worked furiously at cutting their injured comrade out of his armor. The unhealthy pallor of the unconscious Mandalorian's normally tan skin against brownish-black hair clearly marked his most recent brush with death.

A few hours later, a faint light that steadily glowed brighter pierced through the fog of Canderous' unconsciousness. Although his vision was blurred, the Mandalorian warrior quickly became aware that he was lying somewhere on a table or a bed. His skin tingled with the chill of a slight draft, and he realized that he was only wearing his undergarment. Someone had removed his armor and clothes for whatever reason, but a sharp pain on the right side of his neck, that shot up his head and down his arm, interrupted his train of thought. He instinctively reached over to see what it was, when a strong arm quickly restrained him from moving.

"Don't move," his father said gruffly, trying to mask the apparent relief in his voice.

The incapacitated warrior breathed in suddenly as another sharp pain shot down his spine. "What's going on?" he demanded. "Where am I?"

"You were injured," Caldar replied. "You are back on board the _Ascendant_."

"How long have I been out?"

"Four hours."

"Four hours!" the younger Mandalorian exclaimed trying to get up, but again he winced as the same pain plagued him once more.

"Try not to move," the voice of another Mandalorian from Clan Ordo said. "The implant needs time to take to your body properly."

"Implant!" Canderous questioned incredulously as he tried to reach over with his right arm to push whoever had spoken, but even as he did this, he was overcome by another pain that cut into his large hand like a hot dagger. "What the hell for!" He tried to sit up but failed.

"_Udesii_," Caldar said, trying to calm his son down so he did not injure himself any further. "It's just a regenerative implant we put in to help you heal faster."

"B-but the traditions?" his son objected.

"Not your problem," came a stern reply. "When you're in charge of the Clan you'll do things your way. Until then, you worry about getting better and I'll worry about the rules." The older Mandalorian managed a thin but wily smile, "Besides, the point of the code is to make us stronger. And that's all I've done. Once that implant is fully incorporated into your system, you will be."

Turning his head slightly, Canderous eyed the three centimeter metallic square with a blinking green light that was now lodged at the base of his neck near his right clavicle. "You should have just let me die. That would have been the honorable thing to have done."

"Honorable?" the other muttered disdainfully. "Not everything the code says is always honorable. Some of it is quite stupid."

"How can you say that?" the younger Mandalorian demanded. "You accepted the Canons of Honor when our people swore fealty to Mandalore. How could you go back on your word?"

"I swore to defend the Mandalore's goals. I swore to aid him in this quest against the Republic; I didn't swear to watch my people or my son die needlessly on of account badly interpreted superstition. The honorable warrior does what is necessary according to the situation; he does not adhere blindly to ritual or to any code of laws to his own detriment. What point is there in leaving the injured to perish when, once healed, they can fight again?"

"_In battle it is the weak who perish_," the injured warrior said repeating the words he had so often been told. "_The strong linger and flourish_."

"You're just spouting that off like gibberish," his father retorted. Was his son _that_ dense? "Every warrior that falls in battle must be replaced by a new recruit that takes years to train. Whereas giving an injured warrior a chance to recover takes months, weeks, and, in your case, days. That means our practice of leaving our wounded behind is wasteful and stupid, regardless of what the Canons say."

"You're getting soft, old man!" Canderous exclaimed ruefully.

"Yeah, and you're still young and hard-headed. Someday, when you are older, you'll understand," Caldar observed warily. "The time may come when we will do battle and need every single brother we left for dead on the battlefield."

"That will never happen!" his son replied. "Now you're rambling."

"I hope you're right," the other mused with measure of doubt in his voice.

Shrugging off his father's words, Canderous was eager to change the subject. "How's Claws? Did he sustain much damage? When will he be repaired?"

Caldar frowned; ever since Canderous' early teenage years, his bond with his basilisk droid seemed to be a little too strong. He even went as far as naming it and referring to it as a "he." Although, every Mandalorian rider developed a unique relationship with his warmount, in the end, it was still a machine. He had to break the news eventually, and it was better his son learned the news sooner than later. "The droid was damaged beyond repair," he said uncomfortably. "I'll see that you get a new one as soon as you are well enough to ride again."

"What!" the big brawny warrior exclaimed like a child who just learned his favorite pet had died. "How?" he asked.

"There was some rubble floating about not too far from where I found you," Caldar admitted uncomfortably. The Ordonian chieftain's view was that the sooner Canderous accepted his droid was gone, the sooner he could move on. "I think I saw some pieces of it there."

Canderous sighed remembering the events that led up to him floating in space right before he went unconscious. There had been that crazed female pilot that shot him . . . and then there was _him_, that Republic pilot that somehow managed to throw a thermal detonator right in the path of his warmount. _Te hut'uun!_ The vein on the side of his forehead bulged as the anger bubbled up inside him. "_Arrgh_ that pilot! It's all his fault!"

"You mean the one that blew up the _Apocalypse's_ interdictor?" the other asked; after all, there had only been two Republic starfighters that had made it through the asteroid field.

"He did!" this only served to further enrage the younger warrior.

"Yes, that's why we weren't able to capture that Dreadnaught."

Canderous clenched his jaw, and swore under his breath. "_If that di'kut ever crosses my path again, he'll look fondly on his worst nightmare!_"

* * *

**M**eanwhile, on the _Vanguard_, Carth Onasi had trouble closing his eyes, let alone dreaming up his worst nightmare. The young cadet, having survived his first battle, was in an emotional conundrum. Every time he tried to sleep he was overcome by the grizzly memories of the ship's medical bay where he saw so many soldiers various in stages of dying: some with plasma burns so severe it was hard make out their species, others who were bleeding so profusely they lay in puddles of their own blood, and still more with missing limbs and exposed innards. It reminded him of the day his own father died, but, if that was not enough, seeing the doctors and medics make split-second decisions on who was and who was not beyond help shook the boy to his core. In contrast to the scuffle and shuffle of the medics and their screaming patients, the soldier's barracks were uncomfortably quiet.

_Like a tomb_, he thought. When he had first arrived at the Academy on Carida, six months earlier, he had trouble sleeping because with constant murmur of his other barrack mates: some would play pazzak, others would be talking and some would be reading their letters from home. Now, the sinister silence of the empty chamber served only to intensify his mixed feelings of dread and guilt. The very bunk he lay in belonged to someone else. Had he made it? Was the pilot in whose bed he was now trying to sleep in having the same thoughts somewhere on board the _Resilient_, possibly lying beneath the blankets of Carth's bunk? And what about the pilot whose pillow the cadet had barrowed, who had slept in the next bunk over not twelve hours ago? Where was he? Was he dead or alive? And where were the rest of the soldiers whose beds lay empty? As his mind raced over the dismal implications of the battle, the door annunciator triggered signaling that someone was at the door.

At first he was grateful for a break in his morbid thoughts, but as he walked over to see who it was, fear came back into his mind. Was it a personnel officer coming to investigate why he had disobeyed orders or some other harbinger of doom? _No, it can't be. The debriefing was postponed for eight-hundred hours tomorrow,_" he thought trying to reassure himself as he pressed the door release button. Apparently, the admiral and the remaining ship captains were still busy trying make sense of what had gone wrong.

The doors slid open to reveal a young woman in her mid twenties with short golden-blonde hair, leaning in the side of the door jamb with her face looking down at the deck. She looked smaller without her flightsuit and helmet on, but her stubborn glare in her green eyes all but confirmed that she was the same die-hard, iron-willed pilot that had saved his life.

"Meg!" the young cadet exclaimed. "What are you doing here?" he asked apprehensively. "And for Forcesake put some clothes on!" he hissed almost pulling her through the door so one would see.

"Hey!" the Megan snorted turning towards her squadron mate. "This is standard issue military gear," she gestured to her dark grey sweatpants and almost skin-tight white T-shirt that had the emblem of the Republic Military and the words "PROPERTY OF THE REPUBLIC SPACE CORPS" written beneath it, stretching squarely right over her ample bust line.

"For what?" Carth asked as he made sure the door slid shut, "Interrogation?"

"It's exercise gear, dummy. It's the only thing logistics had in my size," she said. "You may be lucky, but you're not _that_ lucky." She took a seat on the edge of the nearest bunk. "We need to talk," she declared procuring a small datapad from her pocket. "I have a report to file in about an hour, and I'm running out of ideas on how to explain how your sudden flash of intuition overrode an order from our CO." _Even if he is a snake_.

The boy sighed uncomfortably; he knew it was going to come up eventually. "Okay, well technically I'm not really military personnel yet which means if you say I came up with it, then I would be to blame. They're not going to come down too hard on me because I'm still a student."

"Um, sure," the young woman observed sarcastically. "And I who, for all intensive purposes, was your commanding officer at the time you had this epiphany, just let you run amok? I'm sure Karath and Halan would be very understanding." She shook her head. "It doesn't work that way, Carth. Since I'm above you, I'm responsible for everything you do. What's worse, is that I defied Karath's orders to stay on board the _Resilient_ to cover your tail while you were out there alone, and I even threatened one of the hangar crewmen to do it."

"You did what you thought was the right thing."

"I know that!" Megan snapped. "It's just those hairless monkey-lizards on the bridge, who wear the shiny buttons on their uniforms, don't care. And trying to get them to understand is going to be like trying to reason with a two year-old."

"Isn't it one of the first principles of starfighter-piloting that you don't let anyone fly without a wingmate?"

"Yes, it's as old as the Republic itself, but so is obeying the orders of a superior officer."

"Okay, so just say that given your assessment of the situation, and from what seemed to make sense strategically you thought it unlikely that the Mandies would expose their interdictor to an attack."

"That it was a feint?"

"Yeah," the boy replied. "And that's what it was."

"Yeah," the young woman added, "but, at the time, that was a guess."

"And Karath's call wasn't?" Carth objected.

"Yes, but there's just one problem with that: he's a line captain, with decades of experience, I'm a low-ranking flight lieutenant and you're not even a commissioned officer," Megan sighed. "Carth, no matter how I well explain our actions in this report—even if now, in hindsight, I know for certain we did the right thing—we still disrespected rank. You could get expelled, and I could get reprimanded." _Or worse_, she thought wretchedly.

"Then why did you follow me?" the youth asked.

"Because," she said frowning, "I thought we were all going to die anyway, and if I'm gonna die, then—damn it—I'm going to explore every chance for the fleet's survival. Do you actually think I believed I would live through _that_?"

Carth was lost for words. "No," he answered. "I was more worried about what would have happened if that interdiction field had stayed up."

"We would have all died," Megan grumbled. "That's what would have happened, and as it stands, the tally of casualties is at nearly twenty-thousand."

The boy's brown eyes bulged in disbelief. "Wait!" he exclaimed wondering if he had heard it right. "_HOW_ many did you say!"

The young lieutenant breathed heavily, "Out of a fleet crewed by fifty-three thousand and thirty-five soldiers, we have lost eighteen-thousand four-hundred and fifty-six of them." She turned her head and surveyed the chamber. "Didn't you find it a little spooky that you're in here by yourself?"

"Yeah," the other admitted uneasily.

"Well, good, 'cause they're all dead!"

Carth felt his stomach turn. "How do you know this? Where did you get information?"

Megan's frown momentarily twisted into a wry half-smile, "I got it by flirting with the Comm officer who finished his shift about an hour ago. You'd be surprised what a guy will do for a little female attention after a close brush will death."

"You did _what_!" the boy asked indignantly.

"Calm down, Junior," she assured him. "He just wanted to someone to talk to; you think we're the only ones who had it hard? If someone needs to talk, I'll be there. I was there for you, when you needed me." She paused briefly trying to let her words sink in. "I hope you realize that you never heard anything about the casualty count from me or anyone else, for that matter."

"I didn't know we had that many casualties. . . " his voice trailed off as his mind tried to comprehend the full extent of what had happened that day. "You can't put that in your report, though."

Megan shook her head despondently as she started working on her data pad. "I don't know how we're getting out of this. It all depends on how they interpret this report. You could get off easy, since you weren't supposed to be here in the first place. I, on the other hand, am as good as dead. Karath's had it in for me since—"she hesitated— "forever."

Carth eyebrows lowered a bit. Why was she being so cryptic? "What is it between you and Karath? I mean all he did was make a bad call and that could have happened to anyone."

"Sure," the young woman said dismissively, not looking up from her datapad. "I'm not referring to that. And quite honestly, it's better that you don't know, since you're new to this and all."

"Um, perhaps you should just tell me and get it over with," he insisted.

"Well _perhaps_ it's not really any of your business," she replied angrily as she finished typing the last few sentences onto her datapad and looked up at him with an exasperated frown. "Here, you better get yourself acquainted with the content of this report, in case they decide to separate us and see if our stories match up," she all but shoved the device in his face, glad with changing the subject.

"Am I going to get an answer, Meg?" Carth said as he took the datapad.

"Perhaps," she replied, "if and when I feel like it."

"Oh come on," the young cadet insisted.

"Um no, it doesn't really concern you, Carth. And besides, you need to worry more about our debriefing than about Saul Karath and his sexist command style."

"What!" the boy looked up from the datapad. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm not going to get into this with you," Megan replied, grabbing the device out of her wingmate's hands and heading towards the door.

"Hey, wait!" Carth exclaimed, following her. "I'm not done with that!"

"You can read it on the way to the personnel office," she added.

"I can't go like this!" the boy said gesturing to the shorts and tank top he was wearing. All his clothes, besides his flightsuit which was being cleaned for his debriefing in the morning, were still aboard the _Resilient_.

"You think I look any better?" the young woman questioned. "Come on, let's go!"

Two pilots left the barracks, making their way towards the turbolift where they endured a series of grueling stares from various miscellaneous personnel they encountered on the way up the command deck.

Thoroughly engrossed in reading his fellow crewmate's report, Carth had little time to notice how Megan confronted most of the raised eyebrows she saw with a few dirty looks of her own, along with an occasional "What are you looking at?" and "What? Haven't you seen humans wearing rec gear before?"

Of course, after a few minutes of waiting for his crewmate to finish turning in her report, he could not help feeling that he was being watched. And in fact he was: every uniformed sentient that passed him going through the corridor either widened their eyes and raised their eyebrows or took a second look. _Great_, Carth sighed knowing he was the only person on the command deck showing any leg. He started wondering whether following Megan in would have been less uncomfortable than standing outside the door looking like a misplaced idiot.

Thankfully, a few minutes later the office doors slid open and she walked out. Carth noticed that despite her straight posture, the young lieutenant was obviously dejected as her worries had been somehow confirmed. "Well?" he asked meeting her green eyes in a fixed gaze. "Anything?"

"Nothing," Megan said uneasily. "No one said anything. I just uploaded it into the ship's personnel files, and that was it. Looks like we'll find out tomorrow in exactly how much deep flarg we're in." She started walking in the opposite direction down the corridor. "Are you coming?"

"Where are you going?" the boy asked.

The young lieutenant sighed trying to relax her shoulders. "To the chow hall; I need to eat something—" she declared anxiously— "preferably sweet and very fattening. Yah hungry?"

"Um, no," Carth turned pale. After what he had seen in the medical bay, the very thought of food made him queasy. "I don't think could eat right now, even if I wanted to."

The young woman threw her wingmate a curious look and then realized what was bothering him. "Oh yeah, right," she said with perfect understanding. "Heh," she gave him a friendly pat on the back. "You've just learned the first thing not to do right after you've been in combat: visit the infirmary."

"Nice of you to tell me _now_," he responded sardonically.

"You see it's just one of things you don't want to do unless you're being brought in, your entrails are dragging on the floor and you're absolutely going to die without medical attention."

"Thanks."

"Hey, it's not something I could have predicted," she interjected. "And besides," a mischievous grin shone on her face. "We can't _all_ be clairvoyant."

"Right," the other said not seeing any humor in her words.

Megan slowed her pace and eyed him intently; the smile on her face vanished and she became serious once more. "I'm sorry, Carth."

They continued walking down the corridor for a few minutes when she broke the uneasy silence. "The truth is, besides the routine check-ups, few of us pilots ever get to see the inside of a ship's medical bay. Usually you either make it through in one piece or you don't at all. The nice thing about it is that, for us, death is pretty quick, but it's hell for family members who can't even get the closure of burying you. All they get is a flowery letter and your id bracelet, if the recovery crew finds it—" but he stopped her before she could finish.

"—Meg!" the boy exclaimed with frustration. "You're _really_ not helping."

Megan stopped and observed the younger pilot very closely. He was actually handling the situation rather well; she had seen many pilots collapse under a lot less pressure. "Okay, Carth," she spoke softly. "Sometimes I don't know when to quit. I'll stop now."

Carth sighed with relief, "thank you."

"I'll tell you what," she tried cheering him up, "let's skip the chow hall and check the rec room out instead. I hear these big Dreadnaughts all come with a fully-operational gym."

"Why do you want to go there?"

"Because, like you, I'm not going to be able to sleep until tomorrow when I finally hear whether I'm going to be discharged or not," she answered as she kept walking. "I've given eight years to the Republic Navy, Carth. All that time I've never once had the perks of being on a bigger ship, nor the free time to enjoy it. If I'm going to face the possibility of loosing my career, then I want to at least know I've done _everything_."

"Okay," the boy said. "But I was told not to do anything strenuous for a week."

"Fine," Megan replied shrugging him off in annoyance. "You can hold on to my towel and water bottle and let me know if someone ogles me."

* * *

**G**uilt and frustration weighed heavily on Jolee's shoulders as he trailed Master Kreia through the main corridor.

The Jedi Master reached out with the Force and then quickened her pace, disturbed by what she was feeling. Like many of the masters in the Order, Kreia had the post-cognitive ability to sense traces of a person's whereabouts in the Force. It was almost like following a set of invisible footprints. While it was common for most Force-Sensitive individuals to leave traces of their presence, the child Jolee had found seemed to have an unusual resonance in the Force. _Strange_, the older woman thought as continued walking, becoming increasingly agitated. _It's almost as if . . . but it couldn't be . . ._ "She went into the storage room."

The Jedi Knight was now genuinely worried, "That's where the disturbance came from!"

"Yes," Kreia said quietly. "That's were everything that has not been cataloged is held. There could be Sith artifacts in there."

"What?" Jolee was now beside himself. The Halls of Knowledge also housed a collection of Sith paraphernalia seized after the Great Hyperspace War, which very likely had been mixed with other things that were taken during the evacuation. "I thought by you would have accounted for all of them by now! You know what could happen if one of those blasted contraptions fell into the wrong hands!"

The Jedi Master's eyes narrowed. _You incomparable fool_. "Don't lecture _me_ on the nature of my duties. There are rules in place here, and beyond those lie the vulgar dictates of common sense which say you do not leave a young child unsupervised. You knew the nature of this facility before you brought her here, which means you had to be aware of the dangers of leaving her alone." She sighed with exasperation. "Tell me? How many more lives do you plan to ruin before you learn the meaning of responsibility?"

With that Jolee's shoulders slumped back and he sighed and his older companion pushed the door open. Perhaps Kreia was right; perhaps things would be better all around if his actions only affected him.

* * *

**D**eep inside the maze of dusty bookshelves, Revan eyed the glowing red pyramid in half-frenzied fascination as she stood up to get a closer look. It was definitely a pyramid, roughly the size of both her hands put together with dark runes or hieroglyphs all over it. And as she drew closer, it seemed to almost call to her.

"_Revan,_" a lisping voice that resembled her mother's said.

The child jumped and then glanced over to Master Baledor's image which was still floating above the holocron. "What's that?" she asked ambivalently gesturing to the glowing pyramid at the top of the bookshelf.

The gatekeeper seemed to stare upwards as the holocron's internal sensors did a spectral analysis. "It appears to be another holocron of some kind, but one I have never seen before." And having lived almost a three-thousand years prior to the Great Hyperspace War, when the Jedi first discovered a Sith holocron, he could not give her any information beyond what his own holocron contained.

So Revan approached the red holocron; unaware what she was seeing a Sith creation; not knowing that unlike their Jedi counterparts these insipid relics worked quite differently, powered not through any kind of circuitry but by the life-force of the dark side spirits that dwelt within the crystal, who wanted nothing more than to warp an impressionable young mind to their diabolical purpose, and whose lure was difficult even for fully-trained Jedi to resist. That was why she could not take her eyes off it, and why it began to float towards her when she barely outstretched her fingers in its direction.

The Sith Holocron flickered growing dark and lighting up again as it rose off the shelf were it lay and lowered itself down to the child's height as it crossed the aisle. It was no more than half a meter away from Revan's grasp when she heard a stern command.

"_Revan!_—" A second was all it took to break the child's concentration as she turned to see Jolee's half-angered, half-worried face as he approached— "Don't touch that!" he yelled urgently as he ran towards her.

And in that same second the ominous glowing pyramid stopped mid-air and plummeted in a free-fall towards the floor.

"_No_!" Jolee panicked. He dived right into the path of the falling Sith artifact, catching it right before it would have hit the floor and shattered into thousand pieces.

Landing in Jolee's large smooth palms it burned right through his energy-absorption field he had called up through the Force and came to a crackling sizzle upon direct contact with his skin. The Jedi let out a painful cry as he let the smoldering holocron slip from his grasp, letting it drop a few centimeters to the floor where it bounced and came to stop in its side with a _clunk_ right at the Lore Master's feet before it went completely dark.

Master Kreia bent over, picked it up and silently slipped it into her robe pocket.

"Didn't I tell you to remain where you were?" the Jedi demanded glaring angrily at Revan. "How did you get in here? What were you doing fooling around with that!"

Revan's shoulders shrugged together uncomfortably, half-scared and half-ashamed.

"That's not a toy!" He fumed. "Do you have _any_ idea what would have happened if it had shattered?"

"How could she?" Kreia interrupted as she found the other square holocron and held it in her hand. She quickly took a look at Jolee and then at the little toddler right next to him. "She's a child. She couldn't tell one holocron from the other." The old woman eyed the little girl with disappointment. Given the complexity of the child's drawings, Kreia had been expecting at least an eight or a nine year-old. Yet she could not help but notice something very bizarre: the air around her almost hummed with power.

With that Jolee let out long sigh as he rose to his feet. Turning to the child, "Revan," and then to Kreia gesturing, "this is Master Kreia; Master Kreia," he turned back "this is Revan."

The two sets of eyes studied each other; obsidian-black against ice-cold blue. And for a moment, Kreia's eyebrows raised very high in surprise and narrowed in doubt studying the diminutive little figure in front of her. The dark-haired toddler was small, seemed sturdy on her feet and had an spark of intelligence in her eyes rather unusual for her age. But how old was she? Two or three, at the most—possibly younger. She was far too young. _It can't be . . . but it seems to be. Yet . . ._ she frowned reluctantly dismissing the thought. _No it isn't . . . impossible._

For a moment Revan fidgeted against the Jedi Master's long probing gaze. But Kreia shifted her attention to Jolee. "So this is the child who can see the future? Who predicted an attack on the Republic fleet? Who you think should be trained in the ways of the Force?" she asked skeptically.

"Yes," Jolee said.

"You can't be serious!" the Jedi Master exclaimed. "She's too . . . too . . ." what was the word she was looking for? " . . . _young._"

To that Jolee countered, insisting on what the child had already done.

Meanwhile Revan stood there, looking rather bewildered, gazing back and forth and Jolee and at the older Jedi Master.

"Do you honestly think this child possibly comprehend such grave implications?" Kreia demanded emphatically. "Just look at her—"

Of the corner of his eye, Jolee saw Revan cock her left eyebrow over her right and studied the two adults before her in amazement.

There they were, two mature big people, pointlessly and hopelessly arguing about her. And neither of them really new her, so what in the universe made them think they had anything to argue over? It just looked so . . . _stupid_. For a moment the child thought back, trying to remember if her own parents ever acted this strangely, but if they had, then they never had done so in front of her. As remote as their system seemed to be, Deralian adults had more sense than to be stupid in front of their own children. But then as she studied the dynamics of the conversation, she quickly realized there was more going on. The fact that the older Jedi was talking down to Jolee clearly meant she had to be in a position of authority, but, in Revan's eyes, this made the Lore Master appear far worse than stupid; she was mean. Why was she mean? Because her authority obligated to know better.

Master Kreia continued, not noticing that the child had crossed her little arms over her chest and eyed her with a look of disdain she could have only learned in the last thirty seconds "—she's hardly coherent. Is she even toilet-trained?" she asked. The last thing a Jedi Master needed was an apprentice who could not keep clean.

"Yes!" an emphatic interruption broke the argument, and the two Jedi stopped and looked at Revan in surprise.

"And I can even flush the 'fresher without falling in," Revan said triumphantly glancing at the Lore Master in defiance.

The Lore Master was caught off guard for a moment; it was not every day one got sarcasm from a two year-old. She returned the child's stern gaze, "So it seems, you are gifted indeed." She returned the scowl evenly and realized her doubts had been misplaced. _So, legend is true after all_.

* * *

"**F**our consecutive blows win the round," Megan heard the tall Echani say to his companion as she and Carth came through the sliding doors of the _Vanguard's_ recreation area. "We'll go for twelve rounds."

"No contact outside the agreed-upon attack areas," his dark-haired partner replied as the two young soldiers walked in quietly.

"And no cheating either," the other said.

The two exchanged a series of punches and kicks on the mat in the far corner of the chamber.

The young cadet gave the two men a wide berth, not wanting to interrupt them, but Megan eyed them with great interest.

"You see that guy with the white hair right there?" she whispered. "He's an Echani, their system focuses on expression and communication through individual hand-to-hand combat."

Carth rolled his eyes "Uh huh, sure," he said suspecting that Megan's reasons for watching had more to do with the Echani's fighter's broad shoulders, athletic physique and the glistening little beads of sweat that poured down his rippling muscles as he countered his partner's blows. "What about the other guy?" he asked, causally pretending to care.

"Hmmm," the young woman studied the Echani fighter's companion as the two went for another round of blows and parries. "I'm not sure, exactly." The other sparer's movements slightly different. His stance was lower, and he moved faster. "He's using a technique I've never seen before, probably Teräs Käsi or something else, but he's really good: he hasn't even broken a sweat—"

Carth grimaced as he eyed the Echani's sparring partner. The only thing he had noticed was an intricate tattoo that covered the man's entire back: two vicious looking dragons, one dark and one light, were intertwined in a struggle for domination. But as the youth studied the design more carefully he found it was actually two different heads on the same body and neither one had the advantage. He had never seen anything like it.

"—then again they only touch sparring," the female pilot continued. "It's not like they're really going at it." She was not expecting the Echani to be listening.

"You know," he said dropping out of his forward fighting stance and looking the tattooed man, "she's right. Point contact is good for practice, but if you're going to get anything constructive out of it, you'll need to put some emotion in your fighting."

"That would be cheating," the other cocked an eyebrow.

"I didn't think Echani practitioners used touch-point sparring," Megan observed joining the conversation.

The Echani regarded her for a moment. "Normally we don't, but it depends on the sparring partner," he said eyeing the tattooed man. "After all, how do you know your limits if you don't put them to a hard test every once in awhile?"

To that his partner replied: "It's far more difficult to use restraint than to go after opponent with every gram of strength available, but I'm sure this young pilot here, would agree with you." He gazed back in Megan's direction and smiled.

At first, Megan felt her cheeks flush self-consciously. Although both men were attractive by her standards, she could have almost sworn she had seen the tattooed man's eyes somewhere before. But her thought vanished in suspicion. "How do you know I'm a pilot?"

"Your uniform," he replied.

To that Carth let out a nervous snicker.

"Oh, right," the young woman said throwing an obstinate look in Carth's direction.

"And besides," the tattooed man continued. "I think you two are the only starpilots left on this vessel."

"Um, you know about us?" Carth asked.

"Yes, the whole ship has been talking about you two," the other said.

"Nice," the cadet said glaring at Megan. No wonder he had gotten funny looks on the command deck.

"Are they saying good or bad things?" the female pilot asked.

"Well you haven't been debriefed yet, so I imagine you're not at liberty to discuss it," the tattooed man replied.

"Yeah," Carth noted warily. "Why spoil the surprise?"

The awkward silence was broken by the Echani who eyed Megan closely. "You have also trained in the Echani arts," he said. "Can tell by your movements—how many years have you studied?"

"Oh," she said. "That was awhile back; way back when I was in secondary school and my dad made me take study the Echani styles. He figured no daughter of his was going to grow up without being able to handle herself along with any man that tried to handle her."

"I'm curious of how effective the styles are in military combat," the other responded.

"I don't do too much hand-to-hand fighting," the young woman admitted. "But there was one time at the academy where they came in useful."

"Really?" the Echani raised his brows. "Could you describe the incident?"

"Um, well," Megan shrugged in embarrassment, "not much to describe, actually. One of my smarter classmates decided it was a good idea to snap my bra right before inspection and well . . ."

"Uh oh," Carth muttered.

"What did you do?"

The young lieutenant blushed, ". . . I—um, sorta broke his legs . . ."

The cadet looked at his wingmate uneasily. Her story reminded him of the fight he had gotten into over half a day ago.

" . . . but, of course no one gave any me grief about it," she added, "probably because the guy had it coming. And no one pulled anything on me the rest of the time I was there. So, overall, I'd say knowing the Echani styles was a good thing."

"Well," the Echani's sparring partner observed. "Since you're both trained in the Echani fighting arts, why don't you two go at it for while I take a breather."

"You're not going to continue?" Megan asked him.

"No," the man said. "I think I've had enough action for one day."

The young pilot found his response a little puzzling but shrugged it off as she looked back at the Echani fighter. "Point-contact or full-contact?"

"How far along did you get in your training?" he asked.

"I completed the Second Tier," the lieutenant replied as she removed her shoes before stepping onto the mat. "I don't mind going full contact if you don't."

"Very well," the other said. "Classic rules of engagement then; we spar until either you or I hit the mat."

"Understood," she nodded. "Whichever comes first."

At first, Carth thought for certain that given Megan was going to get the wind knocked out of her given the size of her taller opponent, but she quickly proved him wrong. In spite of being a full head shorter than the Echani she was gracefully able to block and redirect several of his volleys, which were intermixed with punches and short jabbing kicks, and to counter with a couple of blows of her own.

Ten minutes into the match, the young flight lieutenant realized that she had underestimated her opponent on the basis of his previous sparring with the tattooed man. The sweat on the Echani's was not on account of his lack of stamina, but that his earlier opponent had to have been stronger than he was. Yet, Megan found it hard to believe; she had sparred with men on many occasions but none had exhibited her current opponent's level of skill or matched his strength. She had to change tactics after the first couple of minutes and use circular movements to deflect the force of his blows.

After forty minutes of watching, Carth rolled his eyes and took a seat on one of the benches, leaning with his back against the wall and yawned.

The tattooed man joined him. "I'm curious," he regarded the young cadet. "What are the two of you doing up at this hour after an ordeal like that?"

"Couldn't sleep," the boy said watching Megan and the Echani continue to spar. "Couldn't stop thinking about what's happened, and we're not quite sure what's going to happen to us after our briefing tomorrow."

The other looked down at his time piece. "You mean this morning," he said pointing to his wrist-watch, "it's already five-hundred hours."

"O-five hundred hours!" Megan turned her head in the direction of the conversation. "Already?"

Of course the Echani took full advantage of her momentary distraction and managed to grab a hold of her arm, pulling it behind her into a tight lock.

As the young woman struggled to maintain her footing against while the Echani pulled on her arm even further, and a sudden crunching noise interrupted their foray.

"Oh!" Echani exclaimed in surprise has he immediately let go of the young pilot. "I'm terribly sorry! Are you alright?"

Carth gazed in disbelief as Megan winced. She looked down at her left arm that hung at her side. "Lovely," she said shaking her head at her dislocated shoulder.

"I didn't pull hard," the Echani insisted apologetically at his companion who immediately rose to his feet to check on the young woman.

"It's okay," she assured them. "That's happened before." And then she looked at Carth who was starting to turn green, "well, looks like you're not the only pilot making a trip to the medical bay."

Of course the young cadet was unsure what to say; between his vivid memories of the previous day, the trip to the ship's infirmary and now seeing his wingmate's arm hanging out of its socket, he head was starting to spin. "Oh—" he said feeling dizzy bracing himself against the wall only to find himself being steadied down on the bench by the tattooed man who stood over him.

"Carth?" Megan said looking at him with concern. "Not you too!"

"Try to slow your breathing," the tattooed man eyed Carth with concern. "Otherwise, you'll hyperventilate."

The boy nodded as he tried slowing his breaths. "I'm okay," he said finally.

"Well, so much for the briefing," the flight-lieutenant said.

"Perhaps not," the tattooed man said turning his attention away from the cadet and walking up beside her. "Let's see if we can pop that shoulder back in. May I?"

Megan smiled ironically as he lightly pressed his right over her shoulder blade, "So one of you is a medic and the other is a warrior?"

"It's always nice if you can do a little of both," he said grabbing the lower portion of her upper arm. "This may hurt a bit," he cautioned.

"Like it doesn't hurt now?" the young woman asked him.

"Good point," the other added as he snapped her shoulder back into place with another resounding pop that made the other pilot cringe.

"Hmph," she said slowly starting to swing her arm a bit, finding it a little odd that she felt no pain. "Thanks."

"You may want to go to the infirmary later on, after they've stopped doing triage," the dark-haired man said. "so they could give you something for the inflammation."

"Yeah, but we're not going anywhere until we get our clothes and report to the personnel office first," Carth interjected. "And we have to get going soon."

"As do we," the Echani said looking intently at his companion.

"Oh, right," the other said picking up his towel and looking at his watch. "I apologize, for the terse farewell. Good luck to both of you." He concluded heading for the door.

The Echani was right above to leave when he turned around. "One more thing," he said to Megan. "You said that you completed the Second Tier, but given your skill you really should be on the Fourth Tier. If and when you see your instructor again, tell them your ranking should reflect this."

Megan grinned. "That's rich. And what do I say after he keels over in hysterical laughter?"

"You tell him Yusanis of Echani told you to say it, and then he will have a good reason to keel over," the Echani said as he stepped through the door.

The young woman remained speechless as Carth handed her back her towel and water bottle.

"Um, we have to start getting ready for the debriefing, and we both know it's not going to be pretty," the boy said walking towards the door. But after a couple of steps he realized Megan remained standing in place. "Are you okay?"

"That was Yusanis of Echani," she echoed quietly. "I can't believe I didn't recognize him."

"Yeah, so?"

"What do you mean, 'yeah so'?" the young lieutenant retorted. "You don't even know who he is?"

"Should I?"

Megan snorted as they both walked out of the chamber. "He's only the highest-ranking Echani Grandmaster ever!"

"Um, I'm not familiar with that kind of thing," the boy shrugged. "Is that supposed to be a big deal?"

"Of course it is!" the young woman said. "What asteroid in the middle of freaking nowhere did you hatch on that you don't know something like that?"

"Sorry," the other said finally. "I just didn't know. But if that was him, who was the other guy?"

"Hmm," she shrugged. "Beats me."

* * *

**A**s the evening hours on Exis Station drew to a close, the Jedi courier ship _Star Darter_ was being primed for take-off. The itinerary was routine, as the vessel's crew had gotten used to ferrying the constant stream of Jedi back and forth from the temple on Coruscant to the repository. But this voyage would be slightly different; while the crew, by now, had grown very familiar with Master Kreia this time she had very young travel-partner. This accounted for the fifteen minute delay in the ship's normally impeccable record of regularly-scheduled take-offs.

Waiting on the ship's passenger-loading ramp, Kreia watched the child silently. Shortly after the evening meal, where she and Jolee had both witnessed a blue stream of milk fly back into its cup after Revan had accidentally tipped it over, it was decided that the child would accompany her to Coruscant. The Council would definitely be interested in how one so young could see through the Force. But Kreia also knew that she would be regarded with suspicion for the child, as Jolee had said, was alarmingly powerful. How one so young could have such an intuitive grasp on the Living Force simply defied conventional logic, although the Lore Master already had a theory of her own and an ancient prophesy to back it up. Of course, the Jedi texts were littered with dozens of prophesies: some were about the Jedi Order, some were about people, and others simply made no sense at all. Either way, Force prodigy or object of prophesy, Revan was hardly what Kreia had in mind when she had originally uncovered the text.

The fact that she had been witnessed the Mandalorian invasion of her world was unfortunate. That the child had possibly overheard future battle plans, was a huge headache, and still more incalculable was that she could clearly and accurately predict the future. And of course, for Kreia, there was only one way to handle the situation: the child would have to become her Padawan. Even as she watched the child say her final fare-well to Jolee, Kreia knew she had her work cut out for her.

"Well," Jolee said as he crouched down on his knees, getting to eye-level with the little toddler. "I guess this is it. Good-bye, Revan. May the Force be with you."

"You're not coming?" the child asked with a frown.

"No," Jolee replied. "I cannot."

"Can't or won't?"

"A little of both, actually," he replied with resignation; he had given up trying to avoid answering her questions because he knew it would simply lead to more questions.

"Why?"

"It's complicated," the middle-aged Jedi replied. "But I'm going away too."

"But why can't I go with you?" Revan insisted. "I don't want to go with her." She gestured towards the Jedi Master who stood watching in the distance.

"Revan," Jolee said sternly. "Now, that's not a very nice thing to say about Master Kreia."

The child shrugged. "She's not that nice to begin with."

"What makes you say that?"

The little girl's eyes checked her surroundings to make sure no one was watching her mouth the words. Then she drew in close and whispered. "You see all those lines on her face?"

"Yes," Jolee said looking back at Kreia with the corner of his eye, whose piercing stare made caught him so off guard that for a slight second he felt guilty. He was only trying to quell the child's fears and doubts by listening to her, yet he could not help the nagging thought in the back of his mind that he, at some point, had the same suspicion.

"Those are all frown lines," Revan indicated.

"So?" the Jedi asked. "Old people frown from time to time."

"I know," the child added, "you do it a lot."

Jolee made a face. _Cute_. "Okay, but what does that have to do with Master Kreia?"

"To look like that she has to frown all the time," the little girl gestured back at Kreia who just happened to be wearing a particularly acrid expression on her face. "You see what I mean?"

"Uh huh," the Jedi said showing that he was expecting a clarification. "And?"

"Do you think that anyone who frowns that much and can be nice?"

"Stranger things have happened," Jolee countered.

"That's not funny," the child said.

"Well, look who's frowning now."

"I'm not being cute," Revan said finally. "I'm being serious."

"I think you're jumping to conclusions," the other said. "You can't tell how nice someone is just by looking at them."

"It's not just that," the girl insisted. "She smells kinda funny too."

Jolee's eyes narrowed in slight annoyance. "Look, I'm going somewhere where I can take a little girl with me. And you need to be around children your own age, that's why you're going to Coruscant. It's for your own good. Master Kreia may not seem all that nice to you, but she does care about you." He said as he patted her on the shoulder. "Now, be a good girl and don't keep her waiting."

The child sighed as if she was expecting to hear that answer. It was just like big people to think that only their worries were real. "Will I see you again?"

"Maybe someday," Jolee regarded her for a moment. _Of course that's if you can figure out where I'm going._ He sighed. "Fare-well, little one. Listen to what the masters have to say, mind your lessons and never ever doubt that the Force is with you." He originally had reached out to shake her little hand, but was surprised with hug instead. His hardened expression softened in the face of her childish sincerity. And with that they parted, each going their separate ways.

"So, you think I'm not nice?" Master Kreia inquired.

The question almost made Revan jump as she scampered up the boarding ramp which lifted and closed behind her. Although startled by the Kreia's uncanny perception, her wits quickly recovered. "Well, you don't say such nice things," she said boldly. "You said I wasn't co-co—"

"—coherent?"

"Yes," the child's expression darkened in frustration, she had not asked to have her sentences completed for her, "coherent," she said carefully. "And you didn't mean it in a good way."

"Oh," the Jedi Master's expression eased and even managed a thin smile. "Let us be frank with one another: most children at your age can hardly utter an intelligible phrase and sadly, the condition hardly improves with age for many adults are no better. So, it should please you to learn you are not in their company."

The child was still frowning skeptically, feeling anything but pleased as the ship lifted off and finding the Jedi Master's consolation neither convincing nor especially nice.

* * *

**A**dmiral Halan had almost spilled his cup of caffa on himself reaching over to turn down the volume on the holocom as the Line Captain continued with the same tirade that seemed to have gone on for much of the morning.

"—I cannot believe that on top of the not taking any disciplinary action you're actually thinking of commending those two. Even if they did manage to destroy that interdictor, they did so by disregarding a direct order . . ."

Halan sighed and made sure he was out of the path of the holocam when he looked at his watch. It was seven-hundred hours and forty-nine minutes. Saul Karath, had been speaking for about five minutes, but it felt like he had been droning on for at least five hours.

"Is that all you have to say, Saul? Or do I have to clear my schedule for the rest of the year?" Halan asked dryly. Karath was more of a friend to him that a subordinate but behind closed doors the two were on a first-name basis.

"Mon, you know what I'm talking about," Captain Karath said finally in frustration. "It's about discipline."

"Yes," Halan answered. "I know, and I've already explained to you it's not that simple. The boy's choice was made upon the basis of intelligence you couldn't have had at that moment. And Lieutenant Nayland's courage to back him up may have very well saved us all—"

"Yes but"—"I'm not finished," the Admiral quickly cut off the Captain's attempted interjection. "The best military commanders make their calls by looking at the intel and reaching a conclusion on induction, and that is precisely what you did. But Cadet Onasi's decision, as Lieutenant Nayland's report says and both Jedi Masters explained, was reached through deduction. Which would you prefer if your arse was on the line?"

Karath sighed. "All our arses were on the line."

"Precisely," Halan replied, "which is why I don't even understand why you are upset, unless, of course, it has something to do with you being a Line Captain and being second-guessed by a first-year cadet. Am I getting warm?"

The Line Captain stiffened considerably. "Um no, of course not."

"Hmm of course not," Halan said dismissively. "We both learned yesterday that there are far worse things than a bruised ego. You should be thankful for what that boy did, and if I were you I would be very interested in keeping him around. You may find that your own career might benefit from mentoring someone with raw talent like that."

"What do you mean?"

"The vice-chancellor wants to meet him."

"He does?" the Karath's eyes bulged. "Whatever for?"

"For whatever reason most politicians like to meet with the person who saved their lives," Halan replied. As he said this the door indicator sensor to his office chimed. "Come in," he said pressing the comm button on his desk.

The doors Halan's readiroom slid open, and Commander Varrs, the Executive Officer, walked in. "Sir, Lieutenant Nayland and Cadet Onasi are in the personnel office."

"Very good," the Admiral said. "Have the Lieutenant escorted here and Cadet Onasi to the briefing room."

"Yes Sir."

* * *

**S**tanding quietly in the _Vanguard's_ personnel office, Megan nervously made eye contact with her uptight-looking companion. "Well," she swallowed hard, trying to shake the terrible sense of dread that gripped her, "this is it."

"You think they'll be lenient?" Carth fidgeted, finding his flightsuit to be unusually uncomfortable today, but knowing it had more to do him being in an uncomfortable situation.

"On you, maybe," the young lieutenant said.

As she said this, the Personnel Officer entered the room with his eyes fixed sharply on the two young pilots, who both stiffened to attention and a quick salute.

"Second Lieutenant Megan Nayland?" he questioned.

"That's me, Sir," came a prompt reply.

"Follow me," the Personnel Officer said as he walked towards the doors leading to the main corridor on the command deck.

"Yes, Sir," the young woman said, she quickly flashed Carth an "I-told-you-so" look regarding them each being debriefed separately.

The young cadet said nothing he saw both of them turn to leave, but then at the last possible moment he spoke: "Um, what about me, Sir?"

The other man turned and glared at him. "Don't worry, you'll get yours soon enough."

"Um, yes, Sir," the boy replied. "Sorry, Sir." But as soon as the officer left the room, he sighed with embarrassment. _Wow, I bet._

Meanwhile, Megan said nothing as she followed the Personnel Officer down the corridor towards what looked to be the bridge of the ship. Passing through the sliding doors that marked the bridge's entrance, she walked a series of naval officers working at their control panels. Occasionally one or two of them would look up at her, which only reinforced her impending sense of doom. _I must have really fracked up royally this time._

As soon as the readiroom's doors slid open, the young flight lieutenant thought she was going to be sick. She could almost feel the heat of her military career going down in flames. Her green eyes turned and saw and aging grey-haired man wearing a perfect bright red uniform, the tell-tale sign of a fleet admiral; the same one she had mouthed-off to earlier. "Admiral Halan," she said clicking her heels together straitening her back and saluting so quickly that she nearly poked herself in the eye, "Sir."

"At ease Lieutenant," the Halan told her as he eyed her from head to toe. "And take a seat. You look like you're about to have a heart-attack."

* * *

**C**arth followed the Personnel Officer through the _Vanguard's_ command deck, down a side corridor. "Um, excuse me, Sir, but where are we going?" He had distinctly remembered that his wingmate had taken the opposite direction.

The officer turned and scowled. "You're scheduled for debriefing right?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Well, that's where you're going to the _briefing_ room; isn't it obvious?"

"Sorry, Sir." And then Carth saw something he had only briefly seen in his textbook and HoloNet newscasts: two tall men wearing dark blue armor, covered with thick cloaks of rich royal blue velvet. Each wore a matching helmet with a small protruding crest topped with long strands of black synth-hair draping over. Each had a force-pike in one hand and the stock of a very large blaster carbine protruded out from behind the opposite shoulder. These were Senatorial Guards, which meant the only reason they were standing outside the corridor was that they were guarding a Senate official who had to be inside the room. And to Carth's knowledge, the only Senate official aboard the _Vanguard_ was the vice-chancellor.

No sooner had he seen this when another guard came through the doors. "Cadet Onasi?" the guard asked.

"Um, yes Sir?"

"You are not carrying any weapons, blasters, knives, explosives or any other object that could be used or construed as a weapon, are you?"

"No, Sir."

But even as they boy said this, the guard pulled out a scanner and swept it over the boy's flightsuit. About a minute later, the guard looked up again and said. "Okay, you are clear. You may enter."

Taking a deep breath as if he was about to plunge into a tub of ice-water, the boy stepped into the briefing room. It was much darker than the corridor; the large viewport on the opposite wall painted everything in the bluish light of hyperspace. The cadet heard the humming of hydraulic gears and a familiar-sounding sputter of whistles.

"Teethree?" Carth said seeing the little lights on the droid's paneling flickering in the darkness as it rolled up and greeted him.

"You're okay! I didn't think you made it through the explosion."

The T-3's outer casing was still a little singed in places, although it looked like someone tried to clean it up. The droid let out two staccato sets of affirmative beeps, indicating he was grateful for the concern.

"He almost didn't," an extremely familiar voice with the properly inflected Deep Core accent came from the shadows. It grew louder as the person who spoke was getting closer and then a tall black-haired man stepped into the light. His features were strong with a distinctly long nose, arched dark eyebrows, and a well-defined jaw line. He wore a suit with a long blue-grey waistcoat contrasting only with the crisp white tunic collar that protruded from underneath. "But, you and Lieutenant Nayland barely made it through yourselves," Vice-Chancellor Antares spoke; the look on his face was unmistakable.

Carth was thunderstruck. _What the—! _It was the tattooed man that he had met just a few hours earlier in the rec room.

Antares smiled thinly, noting look of shock on the cadet's face. "Are you alright?" he inquired as he raised an eyebrow.

"Um, no," the boy said bewildered. "Um, I mean yes."

"Would you mind terribly if I dropped the accent?" Antares asked switching into the more casually inflected basic of the Colonies and the rim ward territories. "In the Core, most beings speak Basic with received pronunciation, but I prefer to switch to my native Basic whenever I meet someone from the Rim."

"Sure, go ahead."

The vice-chancellor regarded Carth directly gesturing for him to have a seat at the long conference table where one of guards immediately pulled out a chair. The young cadet paused for a moment as he recognized the Echani fighter from the night before.

"Not quite what you expected, am I?" Antares observed, as he reached over to a heavy crystal decanter and poured some amber-colored liquid into a conspicuously unpretentious flimsiplast cup.

"No, Sir," Carth replied. "I thought you were going to be older."

With that Antares smiled in full earnest. "I could say the same thing for you. Don't watch much holovision, do you?"

"Um, can't say I have, lately, Sir."

"Good. That stuff rots your brain anyway," he said as he took a seat at the table across from where Carth was sitting. "Most people, when they think of my title, imagine someone who has had too many diplomatic dinners, and far too few push-ups. It's unfortunate condition that plagues most of my distinguished peers resulting a in common stereotype that I don't mind breaking." He handed the boy a flimsiplast cup of amber liquid. "I know you've been having trouble sleeping. This will help. Just don't drink it all at once or it will go straight to your head, especially on an empty stomach."

Carth sniffed the cup curiously and immediately knew it was a strong liquor of some kind. "Um, I can't. I'm under the legal drinking age."

"You're also under legal piloting age, but that didn't stop Fleet Command from putting you in this predicament, did it? Nor did it stop you from acting?" the other asked. "You see really knowing the rules entails knowing when and why they can be broken."

The boy sighed uncomfortably knowing precisely where the conversation was headed, suddenly the drink in front of him did not look that bad after all.

"In light of what you did, I decided to have a look through your file," Antares said keying up a datapad that lay on the table.

"My file, Sir?"

"Yes, the military keeps a file on everyone who has served and their family members," the other said glancing over at the datapad. "Look's like both your parents fought in the Sith War, not a bad thing although the war itself was a bad thing for the Republic. I'm terribly sorry to hear about your father, by the way. It's quite tragic."

"Um thanks," the cadet said quietly, but then he thought about it a moment. "Wait! That can't be right; as far as I was told only my father served."

"Yes, he was a pilot as well. However, your mother was also involved, but I'm not surprised that you don't know."

The boy eyed Antares very carefully. "Am I in trouble, because I defied Captain Karath's orders, Sir?"

"Quite the opposite. Had it not been for your's and Lieutenant Nayland's actions, we would have all been permanantly one with the Force. You can read the Admiral Halan's notes on it if you like, here." He called up a different file on the datapad and slid the device across the table to his young companion.

"But I could have been wrong. In many ways, it was a stupid risk," Carth objected.

"The risk was only there because so many pilots were not provided with the proper equipment due to the budget cuts the Senate enacted after the war. Had you all had upgraded astromech droids, like Teethree over there," he gestured towards the little astromech droid that stood in the corner of the room, "I'm certain that battle would have gone very differently. I apologize for any part I may have played that terrible debacle. And I promise, that once we reach Republic space, that I will do everything in my power to ensure that what happened yesterday will never happen again, even if the Finance Committee has to redirect emergency funding to it."

Carth sighed, "What's the likelihood of that happening?"

"It's not going to be easy. To make up for the shortfall the Senate will have to either increase taxes or slash the budgeting from other areas. I know that's not going to make me very popular, but my staff and I are already in working on getting a draft of the preliminary proposal to be submitted as soon as we arrive on Corellia. So at this point, nothing short of assassination is going to stop me from going forward with it."

"Still," Carth said. "I didn't know that Dreadnaught was there. It was a guess."

"No," the vice-chancellor said with emphatic assurance. "No, it wasn't. You made an intuitive leap of faith and you landed on solid ground."

"A leap of faith?"

"Yes, it doesn't happen often, but it does occur with some beings," Antares continued. "You are what when I was your age back in the day that gigantic space grazers roamed the galaxy, was called 'favored by the Force,' known more commonly today as being Force-sensitive."

"You mean I could be a Jedi?" the thought struck the boy as very odd.

"Well, not really. You're a little old for that now. All Jedi are Force-sensitive, but not _all_ Force-sensitives are Jedi. There are some that follow more mundane career paths: some go into medicine; others who go into law-enforcement; a few go into the military, like yourself; and some _even_ go into politics," he hesitated a bit on his last phrase and then continued: " Which brings me to back to reason I requested to meet you. I'm recommending you for an immediate transfer into the OTP."

"The Officer's Training Program?" the Carth was not quite sure he had heard correctly. "That's not possible I've got to return to the Academy in three weeks to start the new semester."

"I know, that's why I've spoken with the administrator there and we're in the process of arranging things. You're not going back to the Academy next semester. You're going to attend the Aerial Combat and Command School on Corellia instead."

"B—but what about the entrance exams?"

"Waved in light of what you pulled off yesterday. I seriously doubt any obstacle could compare to what you've already surmounted."

"And I haven't even graduated," the boy continued.

Antares reached over into his coat pocket, pulled out a small black cloth-covered box and placed it on the table.

The young cadet picked it up and eyed it carefully.

"As we are speaking, Admiral Halan is promoting Second Lieutenant Nayland to lieutenant flight commander. At first we weren't sure what exactly to do with you, since your are still a cadet. The rank of first lieutenant was proposed, but since you haven't finished your training we decided it was unfair to the other officers. Go ahead and open it."

Flipping the little box open, Carth saw a small insignia with two red wings hanging together. "The Crimson Wings?" the boy questioned in disbelief so taken aback he rose from his chair— "B-but that means that I've just-just—"

The boy was still trying to get his mind around the idea when Antares reached out and shook his hand.

"You've just graduated. Congratulations _Ensign_ Onasi."

* * *

**W**ith the unexpected loss of one of Mandalorian Dungeon Ships, Mandalore had called for seven more Dreadnaughts to provide fire-cover in case another Republic cruiser went up in flames and to transport the rest of the Republic captives. He stood on the bridge of the _Apocalypse_ waiting for the capture operation to finish, when all of a sudden the Mandalorian warrior managing the communications frequency saw an incoming hyperwave signal on a priority channel.

"_Mando'_," she said. "There is an incoming hyperwave transmission. It's encrypted."

The armored Mandalorian Commander took a long look at the console. "I recognize the frequency," he said finally. "Transfer it to my chambers immediately."

The Mandalorian female looked up partially wondering why he seemed agitated, but she followed his orders.

He then turned and briskly made his way off the bridge, his long red cape flared in the air as he quickened his pace.

Stepping through the threshold of his private chambers, Mandalore reached for the comm console on his desk and activated the holocomm.

The transceiver flickered on, displaying the image of a dark clocked figure. A partially covered human face indicated the person who was speaking as female, but he already knew this much since he had dealt with her before.

"You have been careless in your dealings, Mandalore," an older woman's voice declared with an icy disproving tone. "Why are you not honoring terms of our arrangement?"

"I have, Lord Traya," the Mandalorian Commander insisted, pausing a moment when he realized he had addressed the Sith Lord, or Lady in this instance, incorrectly according to proper Basic. And, yet, he also knew that in many cultures that spoke the language, females and males were not regarded as equals as many thought that feminine title did not possess the legitimate authority of masculine one. Of course, Mando'a was not a gendered language and the Mandalorians did not make such trivial distinctions, and he saw no need to stoop to that level. In his mind, a Sith Lord was a Sith Lord whether male or female, just as a Mandalorian warrior was a Mandalorian warrior, regardless of gender. And anyone who idled their time away conceiving or entertaining to such frivolous notions deserved to be conquered. "I am adhering to the agreement I made with you and the others."

"But not to the timetable," the Sith declared, "as demonstrated through your brush with Admiral Halan's Fleet in the Bajic Sector this morning."

"Attacking during the Republic Tournament will accelerate what you said would be the Republic's inevitable involvement in this war. And it provided an excellent opportunity to test ourselves against the battle against the enemy."

"Drawing their attention, alerting them to the threat, and thus making _them_ stronger."

"Doubtful, at best," Mandalore observed. "The Deralians took a standard month to subdue, while a fleet took five hours."

"Yes, I know all about the Deralian incident," the Traya noted. "And warn you to be cautious where and when you choose to conquer, lest you transplant the seed of your own demise and water it with blood."

"Cautious? If I knew a Republic Fleet would have folded so quickly, I would have started the raids sooner. You said the Republic Navy would be a worthy adversary; that this war would immortalize the memory of the _Mando'ade_ for all time. There's no honor in facing an inept and inferior opponent on the battlefield."

"And as a warrior you already know that few stray shots fired blindly in the night is not a battle, just as a battle is not to be confused with war."

"So when will this war take place?"

"When you have enough warriors, ships, and resources to face that adversary, acquired by adhering to the original timetable."

"But means at least another decade."

"Patience, Mandalore, for it takes a great deal of time and prodding to rouse a sleeping giant," with that the transmission ended, and he was left to ponder the implications of the Sith Lord's warning.

* * *

**S**omewhere on a ship traveling at the speed of light in the whirling blue tunnel of hyperspace, a hand reached over and shut off the holocomm. This shrouded main hold of the Jedi courier vessel in almost complete darkness. Kreia turned and eyed the small lump that lay motionless on one of the passenger couches, covered over with two blankets. "_Especially_ when she hasn't grown up yet," the Sith Lord, in the most unlikely of guises, mused as she quietly walked out of the room.

But no sooner had the older woman left the room when two eyes opened. Wide awake and fully aware, Revan remained motionless on the passenger couch until finally she found the courage to wrap her arms around the cushion she had been using as a pillow. Once again, she was alone against big, scary and hostile universe, as she would be in almost all the defining moments of her life. No amount of tears could change this.

The child drew the pillow close to her breast and she curled herself around it, trying to draw whatever comfort could be had from it, yet she could find none. There was no one who could save her or come to her rescue, or even so much as utter a single phrase of encouragement. Revan shivered in darkness, feeling lost, helpless and, above all, powerless for she had heard _everything_.


	8. Chapter 8: Going Coreward

"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards." Søren Kierkegaard

**T**he hazy morning sunshine reflected off the Coruscanti orbital mirrors and flooded through the windows of the newly-constructed portion of the Jedi Temple. The marble corridor was bathed in light contrasting a dark hooded figure that cut across the mosaic floor, each step resounding with hurried urgency. Most of the Jedi living in the Temple Precinct knew enough about the Jedi Shadows to step aside and let one pass without question, especially upon seeing one in their official garb, a rare and ominous sign.

The Shadow Concord had been created by Odan Urr just over a thousand years prior, right after the Great Hyperspace War when the Jedi first became aware of the Sith. They were the Order's most closely-guarded secret; so secret that no one knew their number, not even the Masters on the High Council. A Shadow's calling went beyond the duties of other Jedi classes, like the Guardian, Sentinel or even the Consular; a Shadow protected the Order against the dark side at all means possible. All but a few of them had closely-guarded identities: some lived in the Temple posing as other Jedi classes while many others assumed the cover of civilians, public workers, and military personnel. Only a handful of beings outside Order knew of them.

The path of a Jedi Shadow was always perilous: each walked the razor's edge by learning of the dark side, studying the forbidden powers channeled by emotion, and learning to control and contain them so that if the Sith, or any dark sider, chose to threaten the galaxy again, the Order would be ready. The gravity of their duty was reflected by their severe dress: off-black robes, symbolizing what they opposed, silver-grey tabards of cortosis-lined armor-weave, symbolizing what they were, and pure white tunics beneath it all, symbolizing their commitment to the light side of the Force. And that exactly described Arren Kae as she made her way down the corridor.

Stopping at one of the Temple's empty assembly rooms, she quickly procured a security-override card and slid it through the access slot. Once inside, with the door shut behind her, she looked up and saw a black-cloaked figure waiting in the center of the room that turned immediately and lowered its hood to reveal a slightly-built woman with long auburn hair and deep-set sea-green eyes.

For a moment the young Jedi Master froze, she had been told she was meeting high-ranking member of the Concord. "Master Nomi?" she asked, removing her own hood letting her long brown hair drape down in cork-screws. "What are you doing here?"

"Hello, Master Arren," Nomi Sunrider, hero of the Sith War, Jedi Master, and leading member of the High Council, replied. "It's good to see you too."

"I wasn't expecting _you_." All decorum was dropped, and the two women embraced each other like they were family. Arren noticed that Nomi looked somewhat shorter than she remembered her as a child, when she and Nomi's daughter, Vima, were playmates. But the older woman had aged gracefully, still very much resembling the gigantic, ostentatious statue of her at Temple's entrance next to the depictions of other Jedi responsible for building the Temple. Nomi had thought the honor undeserved, since her efforts had been aimed at "reconstructing" the Temple to be a permanent meeting place for the High Council, the Order's new authoritative body, which had been chosen from among the Jedi a decade earlier.

"I know," the older Jedi Master replied. "How have you been adjusting your new duties? I haven't had time to speak to Vima; I know she has been busy since we promoted you both to the rank of Master."

"She's fine," the younger Jedi said. "She's adjusting gradually, as I am."

"I'm glad to hear that—she seems more willing to share this information with her best friend, than she is with her mother," Nomi observed.

"That's only because she knows you have your hands full as the voice of reason on the Council," Arren offered, "I didn't think you were a Shadow as well."

"Sorry about the secrecy," Nomi said quietly, "but you know compromising a Shadow's cover means compromising the security of the Order. And I wanted to avoid further suspicion of Shadows influencing the Council. Access to the Council gives the Concord privileged information it would not otherwise have. That's why I've called you in here: I've received disturbing news from Master Kreia regarding that attack last week. The situation is far worse than we initially thought. "

"How could it be any worse than it already is? It's bad enough that it occurred two weeks before Fete Week. Not only has it caused gridlock on more patrolled hyperspace traffic corridors because the rest of the Fleet is now on high alert, but it's going to impact the Republic Day festivities as well. It came at the worst possible time of year."

"It gets _far_ worse. Master Kreia stumbled upon a displaced orphan, who she believes survived an attack by the same group on Deralia."

"Deralia!" Arren's sky-blue eyes bulged. "But that's where Master Edan is from!"

"Yes," Nomi replied with a sigh of resignation. "That's why I've called you in here. Admiral Halan's fleet is bound for Corellia and is expected to arrive any day now. Chancellor Sanura is going there to see the damage for herself, as are senators on both the Defense and Finance Committees. As the Council's liaison to the Chancellor's office, in addition to his other duties, Edan will already be under a lot of pressure. And I think the holocomm is a very bad way to tell a person his home planet has been obliterated. He should take it better if you break the news to him personally since you were, at one time, his student. This news may cause him difficulties with his cover, especially with Master Vrook being as suspicious as he is of the Shadows."

"Then I will leave for Corellia at once, Master," Arren said taking a long ceremonious bow.

"Thank you, Arren," Nomi replied with a smile. "And may the Force be with you."

"Also with you, Master."

* * *

**F**ear of the dark comes naturally to all children. A child herself, Revan knew normal things under the cover of darkness always had a strange way of looking scarier than they really were. In the stories her parents had told her, all scary things ate children. She knew differently now: really scary things never went after children; really scary things, like Mandalorians, went after adults because children, as she had painfully learned, made easy targets.

The dark did not frighten Revan for she could sense anything truly lurking in the shadows. Her earliest memories were about being in a dark place yet not being scared at all. But there had been voices there: her mother's and her father's, and there were no voices here, except her own worries.

Although not fully aware of the meaning of evil, she was certain it had something to do with the Mandalorians. But just when Mandalorians had become, in her imagination, the worst thing she could think of, she came to the stunning realization that anyone who was scheming with them to do more bad things had to be worse: they had to be very _very_ bad. The child shifted uncomfortably: _Kreia is worse than the Mandalorians!_ In one week's time, Revan had gone from bad to worse. And then there was something even worse than that: if Kreia could read thoughts just as well as she could, then old woman already knew what she was thinking at this precise moment!

The child sat up on the couch where she had been pretending to sleep and gasped. What could she do? Could she tell someone? Who? Other Jedi? But what if they were bad too? What if all the Jedi were bad? _Jolee isn't bad. He knows the Mandalorians were bad, and he wants to stop them. That's why I'm here. So, not all the Jedi can be bad. Okay, Jedi aren't bad, but Kreia is. And she knows what I know, so what do I do?_

_Nothing_! Her doubts said. _I'm a little kid, there's nothing I can do. Kreia already knows I know and there's nothing I can do about it._

_But how do I really know she knows? What if she doesn't know anything? Why would she think that I know anything? She thought I was sleeping._

_Yes_, she reassured herself, _she thought I was sleeping. She doesn't know what I know_.

But then her fear took over: _But if I keep thinking about what I know, then she will know._

_But I was pretending to sleep, and she didn't know that. What if I pretend that I don't know?_

_But what if she knows I'm pretending?_ The objection came back to her. _What do I do then?_

_I could pretend that I'm not pretending that I don't know_, the idea came to her. _And if she knows what I'm thinking, then she knows I'm pretending. But what if I'm pretending that I'm pretending to pretend that I don't know that I am pretending to pretend that I don't know? And she's one of those big people who think I don't know anything anyway. So, if I pretend that I don't know anything, then I'm only thinking what she wants me to think and then she won't know what I'm really thinking which means she won't know what I know_. She paused a moment feeling a little disoriented as she reviewed her train of thought. _Okay, so Lotta said adults really like to think about they think is real, and they don't like to think about it being otherwise even if that's real. Master Kreia didn't care about me being otherwise than what she thought, which means, on top of being really bad, she's also pretty stupid. Okay, so I have to pretend that I'm stupid too. _The child furrowed her brows, her frown being yet another thing that lay hidden in the darkness.

The next morning the game began: the game of keeping one step ahead of the Jedi Master's suspicions, while not simultaneously revealing her own. Revan found her intentions slippery and exceedingly difficult to read. Half the time, she wondered if Kreia was already on to her and was simply playing mind games of her own.

But for the first couple of days the Jedi Master was more interested in what the child could learn rather than what she knew.

Much of their time was spent in the ship's the main hold. While the pilots passed their time across the room playing pazzak and watching holovids, Kreia began to teaching her things; not terribly complicated things: it all had to do with squiggles that each stood for a sound, much like the squiggles she had seen at the repository. The days progressed, and she learned that a certain combination of squiggles made word that meant something and that words could be put together in groups called sentences. By the third day in transit, they moved on to simple rhymes.

"All things br-bright and wonderus?" the Revan squinted suspiciously at the jumble of letters in front of her.

"—wondrous," Kreia corrected her.

"Wondrous," the youngster carefully adjusted her pronunciation. "All things great and s-small?" she asked, checking to see if she was right.

"Yes, continue."

"All things strange and p-pon. . ."

Kriea watched as Revan fought with the text of an old Jedi nursery rhyme, dating back from the times Jedi had families. She had just opened her mouth to help, when the child quickly stopped her.

"—no, wait, don't help me," the toddler said emphatically; she really disliked having her task completed for her. The old woman already knew how to read, and giving the word away spoiled her efforts.

The Jedi Master stopped; "Very well," she studied the little girl's eyes. She certainly had an independent streak in her, but this early in her training that could be both a good and bad thing. Not that it mattered, since she would not begin Jedi training without the Council's formal approval. But while the ship was still en route to Coruscant there were still plenty of things she could teach her without any special permission: like how to read. Even if Revan was a few years younger than the usual age human children started reading, she would inevitably learn it sooner or later. And after her close call in the repository storage area, sooner was better than later.

The child struggled with the sentence, but she started over again, feeling more comfortable with the words she already recognized.

Kreia watched silently waiting for that magical "click" of comprehension to light up in the girl's eyes. And she knew she did not have to wait long, for Revan proved to be a quick-study, but when it came to diphthongs and triphthongs she had trouble, as most children did.

"All things strange and ponderous?"

"Yes," the Jedi Master approved. Of course, Kreia would have preferred to start instructing her in the ways of the Force for she already had an intuitive grasp of the basic skills.

"The Force contains them all," Revan read the last line of the rhyme, and reread it silently:

_All things bright and wondrous  
All things great and small  
All things strange and ponderous  
The Force contains them all_

It reminded her of her home. Deralian was a musical language, lending itself to rhyme. The history and laws of Revan's people preserved in song with lyrics that always rhymed, leaving little excuse for any villager not to know both. The position held in highest esteem was that of a Sooth Singer, they were lyric historians who also kept track of the stars, assigned names and, most importantly, invoked the monsoon at the end of the driest portion of the year through a song known as the Monsoon Chant.

"You will not have any more trouble discerning where and when to enter," Kreia observed with some satisfaction. "The Temple does not have manual doors like the repository and you will not have the same difficulties there."

"Wasn't it easier just to have the kind that move?" Revan asked.

"Yes," the other replied. "But there were those who wanted to retain the feel of some of older wings in Halls of Knowledge, in addition to the Republic being low on funds when the repository was built. Therefore, for the time-being, the repository will continue to have low-technology doors until the Republic decides to pay for new ones."

"Hmm, it was just a little weird," The child said as her thoughts drifted back to the destruction of her village and the thought of who was ultimately responsible. But she quickly stopped before getting to her memory of Kreia speaking with Mandalore.

Yet the Jedi Master's suspicions were already aroused by the sudden shift in her surface thoughts.

Revan's heart stopped. _She knows!_

Kreia decided to look little deeper and see why she felt a sudden current of apprehension in the child's demeanor. Reaching out through the Force, she easily probed through the child's mind only to find something entirely unexpected. At two, most children hardly had a self-concept. Their minds were a haphazard collection of odds and ends; thoughts fluttered about chaotically and randomly intermixed with basic impulses for eating and sleeping. As a child grew older, their thoughts became more and more structured and they developed a sense of self-awareness. But Revan's mind was different.

The Jedi Master's eye's widened in astonishment; she had never encountered something like it: it was like an intricately-constructed hive. Thoughts swirled like a swarm of busy insects: each did something different and yet they all worked together with an intuitive awareness of what the other thought was. Then she felt that one illusive thought that dashed away like a fly dodging out of the path of a swatter. And then something strange happened: a new thought completely identical to the one she was pursuing popped up. And then another, exactly like the previous, and then another one after that. Every single new thought seemed to be a duplicate of the first, and she could not discern one from the other without examining each thoroughly.

Revan remained expressionless. She was pretending, like all little children. She was pretending to pretend that she was pretending, and each pretend thought was so similar to the one she was hiding that Kreia could not tell one from the other. The only way the Jedi Master could get through was to examine each thought one by one, and she just did not have the time to do that. She could make up a hundred pretend thoughts, a thousand, or even a million. Even if Kreia took a second to examine each with her full attention span, it would still take her days before she could sift through enough thoughts to find the one she was looking for, and all the while Revan could pretend some more. She noted the look of complete dismay on the Jedi Master's face as the mind probe unraveled.

As Kreia fought to keep her tenuous grasp on the child's mind, but soon found she had no choice but to give up. She opened her eyes and found the toddler glaring at her.

Revan had won: she had successfully warded off the mental intrusion, and she was quick to press her advantage. "Um," the child spoke loudly, drawing the attention of the pilots were off in the far corner of the room. "Are you done picking my brain?" Her eyes were like two blue flames burning in parallel.

The Jedi Master found herself the target of two extremely disdainful glances. _This is awkward_, Kreia thought as she raced to construct a plausible explanation.

* * *

**I**t was a long held belief that Corellians, being the first to develop the hyperdrive and, thus, the first officially-recognized explorers and space-pioneers, had rocket-fuel for blood. Many thought this accounted for why the public's reaction to the news of the attack on the Republic Fleet in the Bajic Sector was like a bomb going off. In truth, Corellians had an extremely vital role to the Republic: first off, the Corellia StarDrive with its massive shipyards comprising of thousands of construction slips produced the bulk of vessels that made up the Republic Fleet since the Sith attack on the Foerost Shipyards twenty years prior, and second, many of the Republic soldiers who manned these vessels were, not surprisingly, Corellian. So when Fleet Command, after repeatedly doubling and tripling the number of official casualties sustained in the attack, stopped citing casualty numbers and started giving survivor counts, there was a huge outcry in the Corellian system. Dralls, Sellonians and Humans from all five of the worlds asked themselves the same questions: "How had it happened? Why did it happen? And why, in blaze's name, did the casualty numbers keep changing?" And across the Republic, the same questions resounded along with another more fearful question of "did _my_ child, sibling, parent, or mate make it through?"

Admiral Mon Halan right now dismissed these thoughts. He and the rest of his crew breathed a collective sigh of relief as the _Vanguard_ and the remaining two ships accompanying her, the _Defender_ and the _Resilient_, limped into system on their back-up hyperdrives. For a few moments he gazed out through the bridge viewports seeing the large blue, green and white ball that was Corellia, encircled by a colossal ring of spaceyards and the constant back and forth inflow of space-traffic.

"Sir?" the Comm Officer turning away from his console and removing his earpiece. "Corellia Traffic Control is on the comm."

"Good," Halan nodded. Despite the relief in his voice, his haggard expression clearly showed his exhaustion. "Transmit our damage reports, and tell them will be unable to land planet side because our repulsors have been compromised."

"Yes, Sir," the lieutenant said turning to relay the information. "Sir, they request speaking with you."

"Fine. Patch them through the bridge overhead."

The naval officer did as he was told and the voice of the space-traffic control representative garbled on to the overhead comm.

"This Admiral Halan speaking."

"I read you Admiral," the voice said over the comm. "The Captains Yasek and Karath have already informed me regarding the conditions of their vessels. The Defense Force has dispatched a flight of fighters to escort the _Vanguard_ to its rendezvous with our tug."

"Acknowledged," the Halan replied. "Thank you." The _Vanguard_, being almost twice as large as its sister-ships, was too bulky to be approach the ship yard's service slips in heavy traffic, and needed be pulled in slowly by a space tug via tractor beam. "Also, be advised that vice-chancellor's transport has just left our hangar and is headed towards the Coronet Spaceport. I've assigned an honour guard of fighters to escort his vessel into your air space."

"Understood, we're tracking them now," the voice on the other end of the channel said.

"Very well, _Vanguard_ out."

"Oh and Admiral? One more thing," the space-traffic dispatcher added.

"Yes?"

"Welcome home—Traffic Control out."

* * *

**A** _Razor_-class Kuati personnel-carrier, standard for all Republic diplomatic missions, emerged from the _Vanguard's_ primary hangar, escorted by six of the fleet's remaining Aurek starfighters flying in formation around their red-armored U-shaped charge.

"Traffic Control, this is Republic Beta, requesting priority clearance for immediate landing," the pilot of carrier said as the seven ships turned leaving the Republic Dreadnaught and its two remaining Warcruisers. "I'm transmitting our authorization signature now." Republic Beta was the official call-sign of any ship that carried the vice-chancellor, second in importance only to Republic Alpha which was any ship that had the supreme chancellor on board.

"Roger that, Republic Beta, we are receiving your identification signature," the dispatcher replied over the comm. "Please standby for approach coordinates."

In the cockpit of the lead Aurek, Lieutenant Flight Commander Megan Nayland activated her comm, "Alright people," the other five pilots heard her say over the local frequency, "ease up on the throttle there—this is an escort not race. Cut your ion drives to one-quarter power and stay within half a click's distance."

"Copy that, Mist," the pilot of the Aurek on the starboard side of the personnel-carrier said, followed by the replies of four other pilots.

But Megan noticed one pilot remained very quiet. "Hey Junior?" she asked. "What's going on? You awake?"

Inside his cockpit, Carth Onasi stiffened his grip on his flight control stick and exhaled. "Um yeah," he said finally. It was his first time flying inside a cockpit since the attack about a week ago. The vice-chancellor had put in a request to the admiral that as long as he was going to get an honor guard, he wanted the two pilots who had saved the fleet to be on it. And so, Carth had to get over whatever dread he had of flying what he had come to realize was twelve meter-long coffin with attached fusion reactors.

"Please try not to puke all over the controls," Megan said, trying to be humorous, "the maintenance crew won't be happy about cleaning up the mess."

But Carth did not find her comment to be quite that funny. "I'm _fine_," he answered firmly. "I just don't want the same thing to happen like last time."

"Well, it won't," Megan replied confidently. "The tinheads wouldn't be stupid enough to attack Corellia, or anything else in Republic space, unless they had a death wish."

"I hope you're right," the young ensign said.

"Of course, I'm right," his commander shot back. "If the Mandies attacked a Republic system, the Senate would consider it an act of war and retaliate so hard and so fast those droid frakers wouldn't know what hit them."

"I'm not looking forward to another confrontation, Mist," Carth muttered quietly. "I think one is enough for one lifetime."

"I hear yah. Neither do I, Junior. Especially now that I've made Squadron Leader, Karath's going to be on my case even harder than before."

"Delta Leader, this is Republic Beta," the pilot of the Republic transport said. "We've just been cleared for landing in the Coronet Spaceport, platform seventy-six, over."

"Copy that Republic Beta," Megan said as she switched over to the main group frequency. "Alright everyone, standard atmospheric entry. Direct your shields to your forward fire-arc so you don't get cooked while going through the upper atmosphere, watch your yaw angles, and, for Forcesake, go easy on your engines—that means watch your speed. Switch over to your repulsors once you're fifteen clicks out of the mesosphere." All ships switched from their sublight drives to repulsors whenever entering the atmosphere of a populated planet in order not to vent the trail of harmful radiation their ion engines released into space.

Carth knew that although Megan seemed to be addressing the entire flight, she was speaking to him directly since he had never really done an atmospheric re-entry out of the simulator.

"Junior," Megan said after switching directly over a ship-to-ship frequency. "After that asteroid field, this should be a piece of cake for you. Just keep an eye on your altitude and do what everyone else does, okay?"

"Okay," the young ensign replied.

Republic Beta now veered towards the planet following the first two starfighters. Carth saw the blue and green with patches of swirling white clouds getting closer and closer as he carefully trailed Megan's fighter. He sure wished he had the vice-chancellor's little T-3 droid lodged in the back of his fighter instead of a regular T-1 model. No doubt, at this point, he would have had some kind of advice to give. The boy calmed himself by glancing out through his canopy over towards the port side of his craft, where the gigantic Corellia StarDrive shipyards, with their massive construction frames, cut across the curved horizon of the planet. There were other ships moving in and out of the atmosphere as well since Corellian System was a major intergalactic trade hub, forming the junction between two of the essential hyperspace routes that literally held the Republic together: the Corellian Trade Spine and the Corellian Run.

Before they started on their final approach, a familiar voice sounded over the comm from Republic Beta. "Lieutenant Commander Mistress and Ensign Junior," Vice-Chancellor Antares addressed both Megan and Carth by their rank and call-sign. "I wanted to thank you both again for what you did for fleet and for me. The Republic is in your debt."

"Thank you, your Honor," Megan, being the ranking officer replied. Deep down, she still had a hard time believing she had seen the vice-chancellor without his shirt on. "Just doing our job, Sir."

"Then you did it well," the vice-chancellor said as the ships entered Corellia's ionosphere. "I look forward to seeing you two again planet side real soon. Fly safe. Antares out."

The convoy quickly passed through the upper atmosphere. Gazing through his canopy Carth could see a lush blanket of green that covered much of the planet. Roads appeared like fine strands of dark hair connecting clusters of white and grey that were small cities and villages that dotted the Corellian landscape, but they were on their way to the capital city of Coronet on the eastern coast of the southernmost continent. And as they drew closer and closer to it, he could see the city line with towering skyscrapers off in the distance. After they reached the outskirts, the houses and buildings began to be more evenly spaced together in a suburban setting. The further towards the city they went, the more densely-packed the buildings became until, finally, he saw multiple-story complexes all around them and hundreds of speeders and cars moving about in the streets.

Upon reaching the busy spaceport, where security had been increased due the supreme chancellor awaiting Antares' arrival and the large presence of news media reporters, the starfighters stopped to hover in mid-air as Republic Beta made the gradual vertical descent on to the airstrip.

"Okay, we just sit here and look pretty until we get the signal to disengage," Megan said to the other pilots. "Then we high-tail it to base."

She heard a murmur of acknowledgments over the comm.

"You know, Carth, we really need to get you another call-sign," the Lieutenant Commander told the ensign on the ship-to-ship channel. "You can't very well go on being called 'Junior' for the rest of your life—what happens if you ever make Admiral?"

Carth snickered. "Well, assuming that would ever happen, I'm sure by then enough people would have called me enough names that it wouldn't be an issue."

"Yeah, but it will be in the OTP," Megan countered. "And no one's going to take orders from an officer whose call-sign is Junior."

"Then I'll just give them my name and that's it," the boy replied.

"Good decision," his friend said. "I'd hate to see you start off on the wrong foot. Which reminds me: you don't have any place to stay on Corellia for the holidays do you?" She had heard Carth mention earlier that a hyperspace jump, via commercial transportation, to Telos would take too long to get back in time for the start of the next semester.

The cockpit speakers of all six fighters came on, and the flight of starfighters received confirmation that the vice-chancellor had safely disembarked and that they were no longer needed.

"Okay," Megan said turning her starfighter around, "head North up the coast to base and keep an eye out for local traffic." After few minutes out of the city she continued the earlier conversation: "You're not planning to stay on base are you?"

"That's what I was thinking of doing," the ensign replied.

"You're kidding, right?" the lieutenant commander asked incredulously. "I mean this is Corellia: everyone goes home to family over the holidays. There will hardly be anyone there. Why don't you come home with me?"

"Because I don't want to be trouble," the boy declared proudly. "I'll be just fine on base."

"No you won't," Megan insisted. "Chances are it will be just you, a couple of guards, and bunch of droids. The food and the company is way better at my family's house than anything you'd get there. And besides, it's really bad luck to have the reputation of a barrack's rat as an officer. It makes you look antisocial."

Carth made a face, finding Megan's reasoning a little odd. _Since when do you care about being antisocial?_ "Yeah but—"

"—No buts, Ensign," she cut him off. "When we get dismissed after that memorial service, you're coming home with me and that's final."

"Really?" the boy asked half-amused. "Is that an order?"

"You're damned straight it is!" she grinned. "Look, my kid sister visiting from school leaves my old man out-numbered two to one. You'll even out the odds a little bit."

"The odds for what?" Carth's frowned, now wondering what he was getting into. "Is that how Corellians ring in the New Year: with an old-fashioned family shoot-out?"

He heard the comm erupt in laughter. "Hey, you never know when you could use decent shot."

* * *

**S**upreme Chancellor Ayannah Sanura stood on the edge of the airstrip; her loose-fitting robes fluttered in the air current coming off Republic Beta as it lowered itself onto the landing strip. The Kauti vessel's needle-like landing struts emerged from its underside, and the transport touched down lightly tapping the deck. Steam came out in wisps from the ship's exhaust ports, and the passenger unloading ramp descended.

Sanura resisted the urge to yawn as she watched the first group of four Senatorial Guards emerge from the transport. The flood of proposals that Antares had written in the past week while he had been in transit had almost buried her and her aids under a mountain of data. Three days after the attack and seventy pages of preliminary documentation that the vice-chancellor had personally written, she found herself questioning one of her aids on frustration: "Doesn't the man ever sleep!"

"Apparently not," her secretary said smartly. "At least not since the attack."

The red-skinned Lethan Chancellor bit her lip. She had known Antares to be a workaholic, but in the past week he had outdone himself: he had worked both day and night coordinating with his staff on Coruscant for the emergency meeting on Corellia, he had kept her up with questions, details and points that needed to be covered, and also last-minute arrangements regarding the press-coverage.

The fourth Senatorial Guard stepped onto the ramp followed immediately by the vice-chancellor himself, who, to her dismay, showed no sign of fatigue. He emerged from the vessel looking every bit the "Dark Prince of the Republic" that some of his more biting political critics liked to call him. A gold-trimmed burgundy coat that draped over his broad shoulders partially hid the hilt of a sheathed, and mostly ceremonial, sword that hung at his side as he walked down the ramp in his usual calm and deliberate manner. Four more Senatorial Guards emerged from the craft, making up the second shift of his armed detail, trailed by two men in Jedi robes.

"Hmph," Master Vrook whispered seeing Senatorial Guards accompanying the supreme chancellor and those escorting the vice-chancellor changing positions as if performing an awkward dance so the two could shake hands in view of the holo-cameras. "If didn't know better, I'd say Antares acts as if he was running for the Chancellorship."

"It's a little early to start campaigning," Master Edan observed as Antares greeted the Corellian Head of State and several senators down the receiving line, "considering Chancellor Sanura was elected less than a year ago. He was nominated for the post last election, but politely declined—so he's not quite the opportunist you make him out to be."

This did not lighten Vrook's disposition as he cast a disapproving gaze in Antares' general direction, "I miss the peace and quiet of the Dantooine enclave."

"I still have to sit on the Defense and Finance Committee meetings this afternoon," the other Jedi Master muttered. "I asked the vice-chancellor if it would be alright both of us were to attend. He said he was looking forward to seeing you there."

"Looking forward to another argument, you mean," the other corrected him.

The Deralian Jedi Master's steel-blue eyes seemed to smile as his former Padawan's answer. "Don't flatter yourself, Vrook. It's a gesture of good-will on his part, nothing more. If he really intended to tell you off, he would have done so in private, sparing you any public humiliation." He eyed Antares, who was now walking side by side with the supreme chancellor out of the landing bay and into the corridor beyond, each flanked on either side by a line of eight blue-cloaked Senatorial Guards.

"I went over your preliminary drafts," Chancellor Sanura told the vice-chancellor quietly as she shrugged off the cameras.

"_And_?" Antares inquired.

"And you have some good points, plus your assessment of the military situation is right on," she continued.

"However?" the vice-chancellor cocked his left eyebrow waiting for the caveat to her statement.

The chancellor grimaced; somehow her sub-alternate always seemed to know what she was going to say before she managed to say it. "_However_ I doubt the Senate will approve the proposals as currently written—they are simply too extreme."

"That depends how much time we waste bickering over them in the committee proceedings before agreeing to send them to the Senate floor," her companion reasoned. "Both committees should take full advantage of the public's response to this attack and use that momentum to bolster the military and do a major expenditure overhaul."

"But that is playing on the Senate's fears," Sanura reminded him as the group of officials continued down the corridor towards an open plaza where a speedercade awaited them. "Legalization enacted out of fear is not democracy."

"Unless fear spurs officials into doing their jobs for a change," Antares countered as they exited the spaceport walked towards the speedercade where they were surrounded by more reporters. Of course he knew there was flip-side to that: sometimes politicians did their jobs such that everyone preferred they had done nothing. "I am suggesting things that should have been addressed earlier. And last week's attack only proves it."

Sanura found herself once again accosted by journalists. "We shall discuss this later," she replied, having no intention to get into a debate right in front of the press. Meanwhile the door to the armored speeder in front of her opened to let her in.

"Very well . . ." he said as a Senate Guard helped her aboard, " . . . _But I am right about this. I feel it_," he said softly, his words being drowned out by the roar of the heavy speeder's engines as it took off followed by its long line of escorting vehicles.

* * *

**T**he eerie blue of hyperspace transitioned into long white lines of stars as the _Star Darter_ sprung into realspace into the system known to hundreds of quadrillions of beings as heart of the galaxy. The Jedi courier ship just passed the colorful blue, green and white sphere that was one of the neighboring planets.

"Is that it?" a child's voice was heard in the cockpit.

The Lorn Hanick, the young copilot, turned his head slightly to see Revan standing almost directly behind him gazing out through the viewports. "No that's Vandor Three," he said. "It's the only other planet that's inhabitable besides Coruscant itself. There are a few cities down there, but nothing like Coruscant. The Republic Forces use that planet mostly since they have a couple of bases down on the surface."

"It's going to take a little longer than usual because we had to come out of hyperspace further away from the planet," Reen Tormas, the older pilot said as he maneuvered the ship.

"What's taking so long?" she asked.

The pilot did not take his eyes off the viewport. "The fleet has been put on alert due to that attack last week, and a lot of incoming space traffic has been asked to jump in to system a few light-years short of the planet."

"Why?"

"Because system patrol wants to confirm the identification of any ship before letting it get within shooting-distance. That attack last week made everyone far more wary of who and what enters the system."

"Are those all ships?" Revan asked gesturing towards an endless line of grey and white figures against the dark void of space.

"Yes," the copilot answered. "Those are commercial transports. They are in line for customs clearance and inspection."

"But why are there so many?"

"Because the planet has too many people in order to sustain its large population," Kreia said definitively as she entered the cockpit wondering what Revan was doing. "So, day and night, there is a constant influx of ships bringing in supplies in order to satisfy the populace's appetite for consumption. Trade is the life-blood of the Republic; it is absolutely vital; without the continuous lines of ships bringing in supplies from off-world and carrying off its refuse, any Coruscanti who would not starve would certainly drown in their waste."

"That's a fact," Hanick added. "Thank the Force the Sith weren't bright enough to figure that out, otherwise we would have lost the last war."

The instant question came into Revan's mind: _What's a Sith?_ But, out of the corner of her eye, the child saw Kreia make a face and she decided now was not a good time to ask.

"Indeed," the Jedi Master said mechanically.

"This is Space Dispatch and Control," the comm buzzed to life. "Your id checks out, _Star Darter_, you may proceed along your declared flight plan."

"Thank you, Space Dispatch," the copilot replied, "_Star Darter_ out." He reached over and shut-off the comm, and seemed to relax his grip on the flight controls. "It's a good thing Jedi ships get immediate clearance, otherwise we would have to wait forever."

The courier ship's hyperdrive now fired up, and it turned and made a micro-jump towards the white star in the center of the system that was obscured by the dark side of a moon that now came into view. Once the ship reverted to realspace, Revan could make out the crescent shapes of three other satellites. The moon was now close enough that she could see pot marks of craters on its rocky surface, and then she saw it: a colossal greyish glowing orb peering out from behind, growing larger and larger. The child blinked with wonder, her mouth opened in amazement and her eyes bulged to what had to be the size of two Datari coins.

"There it is," the pilot said matter-of-factly. "Coruscant."

"No wonder they call it that," Revan said in a hushed voice. "It shimmers like a corusca gem." From space, the planet's vast jungle of permacrete, transparansteel and metal blended together maintaining the aura fogged-up mirror speckled with geometric patterns of light glittering so brightly they rivaled the night-time sky.

"It looks that way because it's all one immense megalopolis," Kreia tried to explain.

"No, I mean on the inside, not the outside," the child corrected her. "If I close my eyes I can see it glow, like it's alive."

The Jedi Master now understood that Revan was referring to: the planet's closely-packed population. Such a heavy concentration of life registered strongly Force. "Yes, _very impressive_," Kreia nodded warily as she studied the youngster.

Meanwhile the _Star Darter_ moved rapidly towards the part of the planet that was covered in daylight. The blinding white rays of the Coruscanti sun peaked over the horizon; the star climbed higher and higher as the craft descended into the atmosphere. But it felt more like the ship was standing still, and the city was springing up to swallow them.

Suddenly, Revan was overwhelmed by a current of voices so strong and so vast that she could not discern her own thoughts. Her breath staggered as she felt an onset of vertigo. A hand grabbed her shoulder, steadying her, and she looked up to see Kreia towering over her.

"_Take a deep breath and do exactly as I say_," she heard the old woman's voice but her noticed lips were not moving.

Revan stared in disbelief. She could barely discern her train of thought from billions of others, but she finally managed an assenting nod.

_What you are feeling is normal; do not be afraid. You are hearing the chaotic thoughts and voices of the planet's one trillion inhabitants through the Force. Unfortunately for us, many sentient minds ramble incessantly without end. It is a background noise you will have to get used to, but since you are a telepath you have greater difficulty adjusting. You must learn to distinguish your own voice against the constant cacophony of mindless chatter. Focus on my voice_, Revan heard Kreia say in the back of her mind, _and only my voice. Can you hear me?_

"Yes," the child said finally. "I can hear you."

_Answer by speaking silently, with your mind!_ Kreia snapped.

_I said I can hear you_, Revan returned a faint response.

_Now,_ the Jedi Master continued, _Focus on your inner voice and center yourself. Your mindfulness of your own thoughts will serve as an anchor from being swept away in sea of babble_.

The child concentrated trying to separate her own thoughts out of countless others. It was like searching for a whisper in a crowded room. A few minutes later the voices began to die down and, after awhile, they settled into a low, yet constant, background murmur.

The ship was now well into the planet's atmosphere, and after collecting her thoughts, Revan glued her face to one of the smaller viewports, pressing her noise flat against the transparansteel, completely transfixed by the tremendous buildings that erupted from the blocky labyrinth below like giant geysers. She paid no attention to the shadows that shifted as the pilot turned the ship out of one of the hundreds of criss-crossing lanes of in and out-going vessels and onto another one heading westward.

"This isn't the regular route to the Temple," the Jedi Master observed.

"It's all the extra holiday repulsorlift traffic," Tormas replied looking at the traffic report coming in through the cockpit computer console. "R-Sec has rerouted any non-essential vehicles away from the Senate District, but Jedi and government transports can still use it. It should cut down our arrival time."

"Very well," Kreia approved as the vessel gradually flew downwards and leveled off, just slightly below the peaks of the taller skyscrapers, before descending into a canyon of transparansteel ablaze with the orange and crimson light of the Coruscanti sunset.

The reflection was so vivid that, for at moment, Revan thought the entire planet to be made of glass, but then the skyline opened up, revealing a long stretch of dark green. There were dots of color on either side of several long paths converging at the narrower base of huge bluish-grey semispherical roof that was gold in the remaining sunlight. They stretched out like the spokes of a giant wheel. "Wow!" the child exclaimed with great bewilderment as her eyebrows rose. "That's got to be the _biggest_ mushroom I've ever seen!"

Kreia frowned suspiciously as Revan pointed through the viewport.

Meanwhile Hanick regarded the Tormas with a mischievous look. "You see!" he said wryly. "Didn't I tell you it looked like a giant mushroom?"

"Fine, you win," the older pilot rolled his eyes in exasperation as he reached into his one of his pockets, pulled out a wad of credits and reluctantly handed it to his gleeful companion. "Knock it off already," he grumbled with a hint of annoyance.

But after shoving the credits his coat pocket, the copilot wore a sheepish smile for the next few minutes as he entertained the idea that the Senate had spent five years and fifty billion credits building what looked like the largest mushroom in the galaxy.

"That's the new Senate Building," Kreia declared.

"What happened to the old one?" the child asked curiously.

The Jedi Master rolled her eyes; Revan had stumbled upon topic requiring a very long explanation. But before Kreia could even begin to answer, the copilot began to tell the story for her.

"—they buried it and built over it," he said letting the pilot take over flight controls momentarily. "You see, the entire Senate District had to be rebuilt after what happened."

"What happened?—" the youngster turned her head giving the copilot her full attention.

"—really, that isn't an appropriate topic to be discussed in the presence of one so young—" Kreia interjected, scowling at Tormas who ignored her.

"—Exur Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma, kid," the older pilot said quietly with a tone of disgust, "that's what happened."

"Who?—" Revan had not even finished her question when Kriea now made another attempt to direct the conversation, "They were Jedi th"— "they were Sith Lords!" Hanick stopped her almost angrily. "No Jedi would conspire with the Mandalorians, steal a bunch of our own warships and then attack Coruscant!"

"Mandalorians?" the child threw the Jedi Master a horrified look. Was Kreia also a Sith Lord—whatever that was? Mandalore had called her by the title "Lord Traya." And she remembered Jolee muttering something about the pyramid she had found being a Sith artifact. Now, someone else was saying that the Sith had worked with the Mandalorians to attack the Republic how many years ago? She knew that the Mandalorians were planning an attack anyway. She knew that Kreia had to be involved after she had witnessed the conversation between the two while she pretending to be asleep. So was Kreia a Sith? Again, the nagging question popped up in her mind: _What is a Sith exactly, besides someone very very bad? _There had to be some way to learn about them.

The toddler gulped down a big lump that formed in her throat looking through the viewport down back at the Senate Plaza that now appeared much further below. The massive dome-shaped building was replaced by an older-looking rectangular structure. In the distance she saw the skyline obscured by a dense blanket of smoke. There were huge craters where missile impacts cut into Republic City's massive infrastructure. Buildings in the surrounding area were demolished, but some were still standing, their tortured metal frames exposed where ship-mounted lasers had bored into them causing more smoke to spill in every direction. There were little flicks of dust sprinkling out of the upper intact heights of the damaged skyscrapers, but Revan knew instantly, through the Force, that those tiny flicks were actually people jumping out of their thousand-story buildings, much like the way the women of her village flung themselves off edge of its high plateau. She saw what she, by now, instinctually recognized as basilisk warmounts firing down on the city below. It was like witnessing the destruction of her homeworld, but at least a million times worse. And then there was the screaming: billions upon billions of voices screaming in unison.

"Hey?" she heard a man's voice say. "Are you alright, kid?"

Revan shuddered out of another vision; the first thing she did was look back at the Senate plaza to see that it looked nothing like what she had seen. Fear instantly gripped her, as if her heart had been impaled on wedge of ice.

"Of course she's not!" Kriea protested. "Why would you share a horrible story like that with impressionable two year-old?"

"I'm okay," Revan replied faintly. The color from her face had completely drained. _Please not here! There are too many people . . ._ "Y-you said that it was all buried and rebuilt?" she asked politely, her mouth must have moved without her for she had no idea how she found the courage to ask.

"Yeah, everything is now several levels below," the copilot responded. "Nowhere to build but skywards on Coruscant. It's easier, safer and cheaper than to dig below."

The child sighed with great relief; her heartbeats finally slowed. _That was in the past_," she told herself amid her own doubts.

_Do I really know that?_ Her fears shot back.

_Okay_, she thought. _Maybe something like that will happen. But that's a long way off . . . what I saw already happened—It won't happen again_. She shivered seeing the building disappear into the south-east horizon, as the ship veered north. _At least I hope . . ._

"Um that's no story, Master Jedi, that's _history_," Hanick replied acridly as he turned his attention back to Revan. "You're gonna become a Jedi, right kid?"

Revan shrugged her shoulders and blushed self-consciously.

"She's not yet been admitted into the Order," Kreia reminded him firmly.

But the copilot now ignored the Jedi Master's admonition. "Didn't mean to scare you there."

"I'm not scared. I've heard worse," Revan said reluctantly; she had seen worse too. "So the old one was destroyed?"

"No," pilot said as he worked the controls. "You see, during the battle, the Jedi managed to capture Ulic Qel-Droma as his forces raided the Defense Command Center. And they brought him before the Senate to be put on trial."

"And then what happened?"

"The late supreme chancellor was just entering Qel-Droma's plea, when all of sudden Kun and his entourage of monstrous Sith warriors burst through the entrance of Senate Chamber. He used his accursed Sith magic to lull the Senate and the Senate Guard into a hypnotic stupor. The Jedi who had come to plead for leniency on Ulic's behalf, tried to stop him, but it was too late."

"And then?"

"The entire galaxy watched in horror over the HoloNet, as Kun approached the supreme chancellor, knocked the ceremonial staff out of his tentacles and took over his mind," the copilot continued. "I was a couple of years older than you when it happened."

"D-did he die?"

"Not before Kun made him declare that the Republic was outdated and ineffective, run by blind puppets of tradition and that the Sith would rise again. Then he cast the chancellor aside, leaving nothing but an empty husk in a puddle of his own"—"That's quite enough history! Now, see to your duties and stop trying to do mine!" Kriea finally got through.

"But he hasn't gotten to where he says why they built the new building!" Revan protested.

Kreia frowned. "Very well, due to the incident so vividly described by our young copilot here, the Senate decided that the old building was too great a security risk. So after a decade of squabbling over the final plans, it voted on the cheapest and simplest design; hence: your 'mushroom.' You will have ample opportunity to ask these questions later, once you have been admitted."

The Jedi Master glanced through the forward viewport where a ziggurat-like building rose out of the landscape. Although overshadowed by skyscrapers on all sides, the structure was distinct from the other buildings surrounding it, casting an aura of timeless stability. Its sloped walls of smooth white-washed stone were golden yellow in the tawny sunset. Ornate blue stripes flowed down either side of the square edifice that protruded from the middle of each slope. There was a large outer wall around the entire building, and up at the top, in the very center, was a domed structure with ornate buttresses outlining several balcony outcroppings. Four other smaller domes protruded from the building's summit, their multiple-paneled windows glowing in the final rays of the day.

"It appears you were right about the alternate route," the old woman told the pilot as she stared warily at the building.

Behind her, Revan fidgeted, her eyebrows coming together in a confused frown, as she took a first and then a second look. At first glance, the building's pyramid-like base strangely reminded her of the second holocron she had stumbled upon in the Exis Station repository, the only difference was that the peak was flattened and it had five enormous towers with the center spire overshadowing the others. But there was a plume of black smoke spewing from its summit. Then, a split-second later, the building changed, appearing much shorter than she had first seen it; the painted stripes on it were blue, rather than red, and there were taller buildings surrounding it.

The ship descended moving closer towards the pyramid-shaped complex, coming towards an oval opening that looked to be a landing bay. It touched down a few moments later, with its landing pads making a gentle _thump_ on smooth polished stone of the Temple's hangar.

After saying her goodbyes to the pilots and following Kriea down the unloading ramp, the first thing Revan noticed was the smell: the smell she would later identify as freshly laid paint. It pervaded most of the galleries and walkways, as she trailed the Jedi Master down a seemingly endless set of corridors, taking in every detail.

From the vaulted archways to the richly embroidered tapestries, lining the walls, to the sculptures, decorating the corridors, everything was a work of art. Looking down at her feet, the child started stepping cautiously for every tiny piece of tile in the mosaic flooring looked like it had been painstakingly hand-placed and she did not want to ruin it. She would have felt ashamed for having to walk on it had she not been mesmerized by all the people she saw. Exis Station also had a varied population of many different beings, but not nearly as diverse. The Jedi Temple housed thousands of Jedi from thousands of different worlds along with various visiting historians and researchers who came to consult its vast libraries.

On their way to one of the turbolifts, they passed what Revan thought was a very large and colorful flower. She was grateful that Kreia restrained her from going up and touching it since it immediately turned around and said: "Good evening, Master Kreia."

"Good evening, Iaryas," Kreia echoed back to the Revwein Jedi.

"I thought you were going to be at the Repository for another week."

"I thought so as well," the Jedi Master said fixing a momentary gaze on Revan, "but a small matter turned up and required my attention."

"Oh, I see; a new recruit," the plant-like alien replied slightly bending the petal-like limbs that were its equivalent of feet in order to get a better view of the little girl. "Hello there, my name is Iaryas Nar. What is yours?"

"Revan," the child replied politely.

"Well it's a pleasure to meet you, Revan," the Jedi extended another long petal with little tendrils at the end of it and shook the child's hand. "Welcome to the Jedi Temple."

"Thank you," Revan said finding the alien's limb to have the soft velvety texture of a flower petal.

"Any interesting materials uncovered from the Repository?" Iyaras asked as she turned towards the Jedi Master once more.

"Yes, actually, one of the younger members of our team managed to find a holocron," Kreia said.

Meanwhile Revan looked suspiciously at the Jedi Master. Why did she mention only one holocron? "_Actually_," the child interjected. "I found two: a greenish cube-shaped one and a reddish one that looked like pyr—" she never had a chance to finish her statement.

"—_Excuse me_, Revan, but it is extremely rude to interrupt an adult when he or she is speaking!" the older woman scolded her disdainfully.

But the child refused to back down. "But there were two!" she exclaimed holding two fingers up, appealing to basic arithmetic. "I can count, you see? One, tw—"

"Revan! That will be enough!" Kreia snapped. "You will learn very quickly that as a child apprentice you will speak to a senior Jedi only when spoken to, and that is only if and when you are asked a question. Do you understand?"

The toddler glanced up at the other Jedi, her baby-blue eyes pleading for a reprieve, but she found none. "Master Kreia is right, little one. It is disrespectful to interrupt her when speaking to another adult, and as an apprentice you should not publicly contradict her either for she is clearly older and is far wiser than you are."

The little girl looked at both Jedi in complete disbelief like they had both gone crazy. How could they disagree with numbers? They were obvious! It was like saying that people walked on their heads instead of their feet. It did not matter who said it or how many times it was said, or even who agreed and disagreed. It was just plain wrong. "But"—"Revan!" Kreia snapped again. "What did the nice Jedi just say?"

_When your superiours are speaking you will remain silent! This is your first lesson at the Jedi Temple_, the Jedi Master's voice thundered so loudly inside Revan's head that she feared her skull would split open. _You will either learn it or it will be your last!_ She saw Kreia's black eyes bearing down on her like a double-barreled blaster ready to fire, and she knew exactly what the old woman meant. Revan's shoulders slumped, and she averted the stares of both the Jedi, deciding to look down at floor, realizing just what it was like to be one of those little pieces of tile that everyone stepped on.

"Master Iayras said that you were right, Master Kreia," the child sighed. "And that it is disrespectful to interrupt her when speaking to another adult."

"And what else?" the old woman did not let up, like she was trying to pound Revan right into the floor until she fit in with all the other pieces of masonry.

"That as an apprentice I should not publicly contradict you because you are older and wiser than I am," the child continued mechanically. "But, you also said on the ship that I wasn't admitted yet. So I'm not an apprentice, _yet_."

"And with a naughty little attitude like that, you won't be admitted," Iyaras added. "Only the Sith take naughty children."

With that child glanced up suspiciously at Kreia.

"I'm not going to keep you too," the Revwien Jedi declared, avoiding a further escalation of an already soured conversation. "It was good to see you again, Master Kreia."

"It was good to see you also," Kreia replied. "We'll speak later after I've deposited our contumacious little candidate at the Assessment Centre for testing."

"Very well, may the Force be with you."

"And with you, also," the other replied pushing the child through the turbolift doors that had just opened.

Revan wore an acrid little frown as she eyed the Jedi Master and then glanced at the numbers at the top of the lift, seeing that they were descending. "That was very mean," she declared finally.

"Well, maybe it was," Kreia responded with a lack of concern, "but you're a child, and you should know your place."

"Beneath your heel?" Revan's eyes narrowed.

"If necessary," the old woman shot back unapologetically, "yes."

"So what happens now?" the child asked impatiently, deciding it was useless to say anything more.

"Your cognitive aptitude and Force-sensitivity will be tested. And pending the results, the High Council will consider your ability to see into the future. And if we judge you worthy of training, then you will be accepted."

"And if I'm not accepted?"

"Then there are other roads one may take along the path towards Force-mastery," the Jedi Master replied ominously as the lift halted and its doors opened.

"Like the Sith?" the youngster's eyes now met the Kreia's in a fixed stare. And, for moment, there was a stand-off as if the two had locked lightsabers instead of glares.

_Very clever_, Revan heard Kreia chide as she broke the gaze and stepped out of the lift. _But you will have to do better than that_.

Nothing more was said until the two arrived at the Assessment Center.

* * *

**A**rren Kae flipped the switch of her cockpit-mounted holocomm, while angling her Corellian Engineering Corp S-150 Stinger fighter on final approach vector towards the Coronet Spaceport. The diminutive starfighter was less than a third of the size of its larger Aurek counterpart, and many Republic pilots ridiculed it, calling it a 'glorified hand-glider.' Although resembling a hand-glider, the Stinger, whose uniquely placed thrusters allowed it to turn on all three axes at anytime was, without question the fastest and most maneuverable ship in space until the creation of the TIE Defender prototype. It was faster than the Eta-2 Jedi Interceptor that would be put out by Kuat StarDrive during the final months of the Clone Wars, nearly four-thousand years later, and in the hands of a skilled pilot, it could deploy a devastating payload of eight proton torpedoes in addition to its forward-mounted laser-cannons. That was why Stinger would remain the darling of the Jedi pilots throughout the Order for the next hundred years and why the young Jedi Master preferred it over any other spacecraft.

"Arren," Master Edan's surprised voice came through the cockpit speaker as a small decimeter-tall hologram appeared in the tiny round holoprojector on the right-hand side of the cockpit. "Why are you here? Is something wrong?" the Deralian Jedi Master asked as a look of concern flashed over the exposed part of his face.

"Well, it would be nice if something went right for a change, but Master Nomi wouldn't have had me jump all the way here to bring good news," the younger Jedi told her former Master as she began to decelerate her craft.

"Nomi sent you?"

"Yes," she answered bringing the fighter down on one of the smaller landing platforms and powering down the repulsors. "Do you have some time when we can talk alone in person?"

"My schedule is booked for the rest of the afternoon," the other replied. "But I may have some time later this evening. Why don't you drop by the Intergalactic Hotel at about eighteen-hundred hours? I'll see that you get a pass card up to the fifteenth floor."

"Then we'll speak again later. May the Force be with you," Arren said as she closed the transmission.

The cockpit canopy opened, and the young Jedi Master reached behind her cockpit chair and grabbed the small bundle she had folded her robes into earlier. She then removed her helmet and climbed out. Although many Jedi preferred to fly in their robes, given the flimsy nature of her craft, the young woman simply felt more comfortable knowing that, in the event of an emergency, her snuggly-fitting flight suit could double as a temporary vacsuit whereas her robes did not. After closing the canopy and making sure it was locked, she clipped her lightsaber to her utility belt and walked away in search of a place to change.

* * *

**T**ensions were as high as the security at the Coronet Intergalactic Hotel where key Republic officials met behind closed doors to discuss how to respond to the previous week's attack. The Defense Committee meeting began with an unsettling demonstration: Vartan Tabari, the Director of Republic Intelligence, produced the Mandalorian Crushguant recovered from the _Vanguard's_ hangar and asked Master Vrook to cut it.

The Jedi Master, knowing exactly what would happen, found himself in front of an audience of confused senators when his glowing green blade sputtered and sparked against the Mandalorian gauntlet without leaving a scratch.

"Thank you, Master Jedi," Tabari said. "That will be all."

Vrook nodded, shutting down his weapon and returning to his seat next to Edan who, as a Shadow, knew a Jedi had to summon their anger to cut through the Mandalorian Iron gauntlet. It was the only way Exur Kun could have gotten through the Tomb of Freedon Naad decades ago, by working himself up into murderous rage.

"I wanted everyone in this room to know exactly what we're dealing with," Tabari said quietly. "We all know Coruscant was sacked by Mandalorians under Ulic Qel-Droma's command twenty years ago, and the chemical composition of this gauntlet matches the pieces recovered from the bodies of the invaders who died in that attack."

"Furthermore—" he fingered a small remote as the holoprojector in the center of the room displayed an image of the lead Mandalorian Dreadnaught—"if you compare the Mandalorian command ship to _this_ holograph"—the image shifted to another hologram of an exact duplicate of the previous ship— "which was taken just a few weeks prior to the attack on the Foerost Shipyards, you will see that, despite the extra armor paneling, they are completely identical. And finally, if you skip to page fifteen in your intelligence packets you'll see a detailed analysis of the carbon scoring found on the hulls of the remaining vessels in Admiral Halan's fleet—" he waited for some of the officials in the large conference room to flip open their heavily-encrypted datapads and follow along "—indicates their turbolasers were using ion flow, extremely similar to the MX prototype unit stolen from the military weapons depot on Coruscant. All of this evidence proves, beyond any doubt, that the group that carried out the attack on our fleet last week was the very same horde allied with the Sith during the war. I should also point out that several of our intelligence operatives in the Outer Rim say they have been noticing an increased number of refugees at various hyperspace drop-off points, which could indicate that they have been attacking worlds along the Rim."

"Excuse me, Director," the Treneta Darbej the senator from Abregado-Rae, questioned. "You said 'could indicate,' which implies that the cause is ambiguous. Do you have anything linking this group to any other attack?"

Tabari flinched, "No at this time I do not, but the movement we are seeing is consistent with raids occurring along the Outer Rim."

"Is _consistent with_, but not _necessarily_ connected with the Mandalorian attack," Chancellor Sanura corrected him, "at least not as far as you can tell."

"Yes, Your Honor," the director replied. "I'm simply interpreting the data we have in manner that makes the most sense."

Meanwhile Sanura glanced at Antares who immediately addressed the note-takers in the back of the room. "Let the records show that so far, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest the Mandalorians are or are not connected with another raid on the Rim." He looked back up at the dark-haired director. "Director, in your office's opinion do you have any inkling as to what may have caused this attack?"

"—Excuse me, Vice-Chancellor, but I'd like to answer that question, if I may," Admiral Ranith, who represented Republic Military Intelligence spoke up.

"Go ahead," Antares acknowledged.

"Thank you," the admiral said. "As many of you might remember, the Mandalorian force that attacked Coruscant was repelled. They failed to capture the planet since they spend most of their resources on a ground invasion, and the Tetan fleet did not reinforce them. As a result, once the Mandalorians learned of Ulic's capture they fled. The after the attack, Fleet Command's primary focus was dealing with the disaster-relief effort. By the time we were able to track them down, the Sith held several key hyperspace routes, and the Navy was unable to give chase, until they attacked Onderon. At that point, the Onderonians were able to hold them off until Admiral Vinicus' force arrived. That was when they retreated. However, out of the three-hundred brand new ships lost from the Foerost Shipyards only sixty of them were accounted for at the Battle of Coruscant, the rest fled. And according to our reports from then, the force detained at Onderon was even smaller. The Mandalorians had to have divided their fleet; part of it must have remained with Ulic Qel-Droma prior to the Cron Cataclysm."

"—And that force vanished _after_ we contained Qel-Droma, which was why we encountered so little resistance at Yavin," Edan said quietly, recalling the final disastrous days of the Sith War.

"As I said in my report," High Admiral Vinicus broke the uneasy silence, "twenty years ago, we were assisted by the Onderonians, and that is why I think the Mandalorians decided to flee instead of staying and fighting. However might be another reason they fled."

"Such as?" Antares questioned.

"Their leader may have been injured or killed."

"And you did not pursue them, _because_?"

"Because, Vice-Chancellor," Vicinus said glaring right the senator from Onderon "Queen Galia did not want Republic troops further desecrating the remains of her ancestors. And after what happened during the Naad Uprising, I thought it best to avoid sending men down to the surface of the Dxun moon. Then we were called in to reinforce the Jedi at Yavin Four. It's impossible for a fleet to be in two places at the same time."

"And so," Ranith continued, "the Mandalorians got away, with two-hundred and forty brand-new capital ships."

"That still doesn't explain why they attacked my fleet," Admiral Halan countered.

"Because it is part of their culture," Antares explained. "They attacked the Empress Teta System prior to joining forces with the Sith." Before being nominated as vice-chancellor, Antares represented the war-torn system in the Senate. He was not a native-born Tetan, but his help in reestablishing the government of Koros Major after the coup instigated by the Krath earned him enough esteem to be appointed to the position of senator by the newly-elected Tetan monarch. "It's mandated by their code of laws; they view battle as some kind of religious crusade."

"That's consistent with the information we have on file," Tabari agreed, now wondering if the most recent Mandalorian attack was a prelude to another galactic conflagration the way the attack on Koros Major had been. "The Galactic Starfighting Tournament is a well-documented event, and everyone knows when and where it is held. Your fleet was an irresistible target."

"That fleet should not have been there in the first place," Zren Lanef, the senator from Nemoidia and leader of the Trade Alliance, which in the final centuries before the Clone Wars would develop into the Trade Federation, pointed out. "The Republic should not be sending a military force outside of its borders. It is nothing more than unnecessary spear-shaking. In many ways, the Republic no longer needs a standing military; most systems have defense forces that patrol their space. It's a burden that—" he was cut off by Senator Kiona Walyna of Alderaan.

"—everyone here knows the only reason you're part of the anti-military move in the Senate is because the Trade Alliance would love nothing better than to bully around less successful non-member systems, and without the threat of military repercussions, some of the more shady and scrupulous organizations, including the Trade Alliance and the Czerka Corporation would easily run amok and even go as far as invading any planet that has useful resources," the blonde woman said. "Who do you think you're fooling? The only time Nemoidia backs anything, it always has something to do with its bottom line!"

"I demand an apology!" the Namoidian shouted pointing at the Alderaanian senator. "That was very racist—"

"—Oh please," the other senator scoffed. "Don't even think of playing the xenophobe card with me. Alderaan is known throughout the galaxy for its tolerance of other races and its people's dedication to free thinking, whereas the Nemoidians' legacy to the Republic remains to be seen—"

With that the color in the Nemoidan's face turned into a darker shade of grey as he became enraged, "Why don't you explain to me why taxes continue to be levied on trade to finance a fleet that is superfluous at best, since the Jedi receive the bulk of defense fund spending anyway!"

"Well let's see," Senator Walyna retorted, "last I looked, there weren't enough Jedi in the Order to fill a space cruiser, let alone defend several hundred thousand systems!"

The vice-chancellor was about to interrupt the exchange when the final comment piqued his interest. "Just a moment," he said turning to the Deralian Jedi Master. "Master Edan, exactly _how many_ Jedi does the Order have?"

"There are about sixty-five hundred of us, ranging in rank from Padawan to Master," Edan replied.

"That is a fair approximation," Vrook confirmed his former-master's numbers.

Those senators in the room that had eyebrows raised them in surprise.

"That's it?" Chancellor Sanura asked with dismay.

"Yes," the Deralian explained. "We're not quite what we were before the Sith War. The Order is still recuperating."

"But it has been _twenty years_," the chancellor insisted. "Most planetary populations have recovered since then."

"It's _complicated_," the Edan said reluctantly.

"How complicated can it be?" the vice-chancellor looked astounded. "If every Jedi had at least two off-spring, the Order would have tripled by now. What have you people been doing all this time?"

"Let's _not_ go _there_," Vrook muttered grumpily.

"It's the new non-attachment policy implemented right after the war. Some of the high-ranking Masters decided that Jedi who formed emotional attachments were more susceptible to the dark side. And with the election of the High Council, it became part of the Canon Law, the rules and regulations a Jedi must adhere to in order to demonstrate commitment to the Jedi Code. That's why few of us ever have offspring anymore, unless given consent of the High Council," Edan spoke mechanically side-stepping his disgust for what he thought was flawed logic. That a Jedi had to prove anything over and above following the Code, which had been replaced with more radical version by Master Odan Urr, a Jedi Master who had presided over the Jedi assemblies for six-hundred years prior to the war, turned his stomach. In spite of Odan Urr being his master, Edan had bitterly disagreed with the Draethos Jedi on this single issue.

"But that limits your numbers," Sanura observed, "and the Republic needs more Jedi."

"Yes," Antares added, "if I didn't know better, it looks as if the Order wants to be in effective. What has it been doing with all the credits the Senate allotted it?

"Organizing mostly," Vrook answered.

"Organizing?" the Nemoidian senator echoed.

"Yes, now that the Order has a centralized governing body, with the masters from various enclaves reporting to it, it can coordinate and respond to emergency situations more effectively," the older-looking Jedi Master explained.

"So you've spent the last two decades creating a theocratic bureaucracy?" the vice-chancellor was incredulous.

"That's not all we've been doing," Edan added. "We've also been standardizing the Jedi training curriculum. You see, Vice-Chancellor, prior to the war with the Sith, the Order took young adults as apprentices. At the end of the war, however, the Order started recruiting children instead young adults, since a child will not question Code the way an adult student would. But because the Order no longer allows us to have families, we needed to implement a heavily publicized and very expensive recruitment campaign. And after the war, many parents are still very reluctant to part with their Force-sensitive children."

"But why hasn't the Order been able to make up for its lost numbers?" Sanura questioned.

"Because we've had to increase the amount of time it takes from an admit to go from apprentice to Padawan to full-fledged Jedi Knight. Before the war, it took roughly five years for a trainee to go from Apprenticeship to Knighthood. If the Order continued that in manner, you'd have children with lightsabers roaming the galaxy unsupervised—I doubt the Senate would like that," Vrook replied.

"And even as we speak, the shortage of Jedi Masters due to the Sith War has put stress on the Council to grant the title to younger and younger Jedi. Last week the High Council promoted two young Knights to that ranking, both of these women were only twenty-four standard years of age. In past times, that was unheard of. And the Dantooine Enclave already has a ten year-old Padawan that's constructed a lightsaber. If he continues on the present rate, he'll be knighted in his mid teens," the other Jedi Master said. "Putting more pressure on the Order to turn out more Jedi will only continue the trend."

The Defense Committee was quiet for a moment as it considered the Deralian Jedi Master's words, but Vrook broke the silence.

"The situation is not that bad," he suggested. "The Council would not promote anyone who was not qualified to that ranking. And the young Padawan Master Edan was referring to, a little human boy named Malak, is the exception and not the norm."

"Either way," Vicinus reverted back to issue at hand, "if the Mandalorians use that interdictor for another surprise attack Coruscant the result would be catastrophic. Even with the system defense force stationed at Vandor Three, intercepting a fleet that size in an interdiction field would take hours, and by then the planet would be a complete loss. The cost of rebuilding Coruscant would bankrupt the Republic, and the loss of life would be staggering."

"Yes, but a fleet that size would be detectible," the Eone Kaar, the Senator from Onderon sitting at other end of the conference table, suggested.

"Not if they are cloaked," Halan countered. "We discovered and engaged that Dreadnaught was because we had Jedi on board. If all their vessels have cloaking devices, they could catch us at unawares at anytime."

"Director, the Mandalorians have been gone for two decades," Chancellor Sanura said. "Where do you suppose they have been all this time?"

"They left known space, we really don't know where their homeworld is," Tabari answered, "or even _if_ they have one."

"And is it possible, even if unlikely, that they may have uncovered a way to reach Coruscant from the Unknown Regions?" the Chancellor asked.

"It's always possible," the other conceded. "New routes are uncovered every day."

"Right now, we've put the entire fleet on alert. But there problem is most succinctly put in Vice-Chancellor Antares' report: We don't have enough ships and firepower to protect every system. If they attack in force, they could easily overwhelm any of our colonies along the Mid Rim. A sector patrol group simply cannot handle two-hundred and forty ships of the caliber captured from Foerost. And who knows what other technology they have," High Admiral Vinicus cautioned.

"He is right; we must upgrade the fleet," Admiral Ranith explained. "Half of our ships still have hyperdrives that rely on navigation buoys. Corellia's local defense force has recently updated the bulk all their capital ship guns from standard laser-cannons to supercharged turbolasers. Yet only our newer top-of-the line ships have them and even fewer vessels have the armor-capability to withstand a prolonged engagement with an opponent that has turbolasers. The ships in Halan's fleet that survived the encounter last week were the ones that had their hulls retrofitted, and they barely made it through. And finally, the issue of the astromech droids on our Aurek fighters: on page forty-seven, he calls for _every single_ droid on every last Aurek to be upgraded immediately to a T-2 series."

"But, that's not enough," the High Admiral responded. "We need to put a hyperdrive on every starfighter in the fleet."

"That's overkill—" Gnar Y'quari, a stocky-looking Baragwin representing Metellos, commented but was cut off by Halan.

"—um, no it is not. The Jedi Order has had hyperdrives on their starfighters for the past twenty years," the fleet admiral said as he pointed in the direction where the two Jedi Masters were sitting. "We suffered over ninety percent casualties amongst our pilots against the Mandalorians, and need I remind you Senator, if you are not familiar with the Galactic Tournament, that those were our very best pilots? It will take _years_ to replace them."

"But, all these recommendations," the Senator Walyna looked over her data pad. "We're talking about trillions of credits here."

"Yes," Antares added. "And every day we do nothing, the price tag continues to go up."

"This is unacceptable!" the Namoidian Senator exclaimed. "Isn't it bad enough that the Republic hasn't gotten over the last war? By bolstering the military we only increase the chances of another one!"

"Excuse me?" Admiral Ranith turned incredulously to the Namoidian. "The Republic did not start the last war, nor the one before. And in both those cases, it was the Republic Military with the help of the Jedi that picked up the pieces. There are two striking differences between soldiers and politicians: the first is that that soldiers don't start wars, politicians do, and the second is that soldiers have no choice but to do their duty, whereas, often times, politicians hardly ever do theirs—"

"—Oh, come now, let us at least _attempt_ to keep this meeting civilized," Antares interrupted. "That was far from a necessary observation, Admiral, particularly since Senator Lanef did not insult you."

"With all do respect, Your Honours," the Vinicus regarded both the chancellor and vice-chancellor. "This problem arose out of the Senate's failure to properly deal with the Mandalorians the last time they attacked the Republic. And even then, Fleet Command couldn't respond fast enough because the fleet was spread too thin. We need to solve with this problem _now_. The more we procrastinate, the worse it will get. We shouldn't leave a hostile fleet of ships to destabilize the Outer Rim. The Republic leads the galaxy and we must be decisive on this issue."

"You sound as if you're suggesting a pre-emptive strike," the Chandrilan Senator observed with disbelief.

"Hardly," Senator Rehnal joined the conversation. "They attacked us first, without any provocation, remember?" the Mon Calamari reminded his colleague. "Under the Republic Constitution, that qualifies as an act of war. The Senate should to take immediate action!"

"—The Constitution explicitly states that for an aggressive act to be designated an act of war, it must be an attack on a _Republic system_. The attack did not occur in Republic Space, and therefore, cannot be interpreted as such, unless you want call any star system we jump a fleet into a _de facto_ Republic system. That would set a very dangerous precedent in a time where the we're not on the friendliest terms with our neighbors," Chancellor Sanura commented.

"It's a little premature to start banging the war drums, Senator," Admiral Ranith added looking the Mon Calamarian. "We need a target first. All we know of them so far is that they have over two-hundred of our vessels. We don't know the size of the Mandalorian fleet, nor its capability. We don't know how many planets they've taken, if they have taken any at all. And if they are nomadic, as what little data we have on them suggests, then none of our fleets will be able to engage them until they decide to show themselves."

"What's more," Director Tabari added, "we need to start gathering information on them. If you want to win a war, you need to gather intelligence, and that requires placement of agents within their ranks. That's going to be extremely difficult. The last time we encountered them, they were a homogenous race that was no longer found anywhere in the Republic."

"This may come as a shock to some people, but the best way to win a war is not to have one in the first place," Master Vrook declared. "We need to learn about them, so we can understand them. If we can understand them, there might be a diplomatic solution. Ulic Qel-Droma was able to make allies of them, so they do compromise."

"Yes," Master Edan responded. "But that was only _after_ Ulic defeated their leader in hand to hand combat. They are clearly a culture built on aggression."

"Exactly," the Mon Calamari Senator insisted, "which is why military action must be taken as soon as possible."

"I am not going to disagree with Senator Rehnal," High Admiral Vinicus said. "I think he is absolutely right."

"I believe you are both incorrect, High Admiral," Senator Ni'kar Meekae, a Bith representing the Mayagil Sector, turned is elongated head towards his colleague. "Why start another conflict? We were so engrossed in the last war that we could not stop the bloody feud between the Corellian and Aqualish colonies in the Goroth System. And even now, the Argazdans, who took advantage of the Senate's distraction with the war to secede, are still killing and enslaving millions of innocent sentients from its neighboring systems. And that slaughter has already gone on for two decades! If there is to be military action, it should be in Kunz Sector to stop the killing and bring Governor Myrial to justice."

"We have already considered and rejected intervention for the Kunz Sector, Senator," Antares responded. "According to Republic Law, membership is voluntary, and last I checked, we were a democracy not a military dictatorship. To attack a system for choosing to secede would suggest we constrain our member systems and hold them hostage under threat of military reprisal. Even more systems would jump ship as a result, and I wouldn't blame them for it either. The other reason is that sending a fleet to that sector requires leaving some of our other colonies in the Rim unprotected."

"So in order to keep the Republic together, we're allowing mass genocide?" the Senator Meekae questioned with outrage.

Antares sighed. "There is no question what the Argazdans are doing is wrong on many different levels, but none of the systems they are invading have representation in the Senate, which makes it extremely difficult to build case for military action that does not look like the Senate is changing its policy on voluntary membership. Unfortunately, the Argazdans have thwarted every attempt made by Republic Intelligence to make contact with other beings in the Kunz Sector. So until we can get the other systems to come forward, there is nothing that can be done."

"So they are simply not important because they are not Republic systems," the Bith ventured.

"Of course they are important! They are civilizations and they should be protected," the vice-chancellor countered. "But if you've read the documentation for my proposal you will know that out of a current fleet of seventeen thousand five hundred and twenty-seven Dreadnaught Cruisers, one-hundred and seventy-five thousand Corellian Warcruisers, and another two-hundred thousand troop-carriers, ten percent of those ships are unavailable at anytime because they are scheduled for routine maintenance. Most of the remaining ships are already dispatched to diplomatic hotspots, leaving roughly six sector patrol groups to deal with any emergency that may arise like the Mandalorian attack last week. Every week another ship is retired, and the Navy commissions one new capital ship for every twenty vessels it pulls, mostly because it cannot maintain a fleet that size on its current budget," he paused for a moment for emphasis seeing both all the admirals nodding.

"Which of you think that with the crises discussed at this meeting, demilitarizing is a good idea?" the vice-chancellor a raised his left eyebrow as he realized no one would raise an appendage. _Alright, that's encouraging_, he thought.

"Now how many of you agree with my proposal for retrofitting and updating our existing ships, and replacing the ones that are obsolete with newer ones, some of which should also have interdictor capabilities?"

This time, a third of the of the hundred-senator committee raised their hands or equivalent appendage.

_Definitely more than I expected_, he smirked deviously. "Alright and how many of you would agree to send it to the Senate floor for voting, if it could be done without further taxation?"

Upon hearing this, everyone on the committee showed their approval.

_Not bad, considering the proposal requires only a simple majority to qualify for a full-assembly vote_. "And if I make the personal assurance to each of you that there will be no need to increase trade and import taxes to cover the expense, how many of you will vote for it right now?"

Ninety-eight limbs went up and the vice-chancellor knew the Republic was at least one step closer to dealing with the Mandalorian threat. A pleased grin traced over his face, as he locked glances with Sanura. "Well Madam Chancellor, it appears we are going before the Senate."

A few minutes later, while people were still shuffling out of the meeting room Sanura approached Antares wondering what he had up his sleeve. "You've better be one hell of a magician," she said very quietly making sure no one could hear her. "No taxes? How are you going to pull that rancor out your hat?"

"Ah, but no slight of the hand is needed," Antares replied with a roguish smile, "when a simple Jedi trick will do."

* * *

"**A**lright Revan," Master Vici Ramunee, who was one of the Jedi Masters in charge of testing new Jedi candidates, told the little girl that sat across from her at the table reassuringly. "This will be the final portion of the testing, and then you'll be done."

The jet-haired youngster yawned and rubbed her eyes groggily. "Okay," she said quietly. Revan was tired and hungry. It had been hours since Master Kreia had dropped her off at the Temple Assessment Center. The first thing the Jedi had done was to put her in an empty room with nothing but a table, a chair, a sheet of flimsiplast with lots of little circles, along with a pencil and a computer console.

"Welcome to the UCIT," a recorded woman's voice said through the console speaker.

"What's a _youssit_?" the child asked curiously.

"The second edition Universal Crystallized Intelligence Test designed by the Galactic Institute of Neurophysiology," said the computer console.

"Okay, so that has something to do with how smart I am?" Revan questioned.

"That is correct," came an efficiently placed answer. In the decades to come, the Jedi Order would abandon the UCIT due to the controversial notion of crystallized intelligence stemmed, in part, by the results of Revan's testing. Some neurophysiologists would later argue that there was no such thing, but for now, Revan was stuck taking it. "I will ask you a series of questions and display five possible answers on the screen. Please fill in the bubble corresponding to the best answer for each numbered question"—Revan glanced down at the answer sheet, noticing there were two-hundred numbered answer rows— "please try to answer every question within the time limit."

"—How long do I have?" the child asked.

"You have two hours as of"—the computer paused— "now."

"Thanks," Revan said with dismay as she started working through a series of questions that seemed designed not so much to confuse her but to be tedious enough to be very annoying.

In the end, she was relieved to have finished with minutes to spare and was about to start doodling on the back of her answer sheet when one of the assisting Padawans came in and took it away from her.

Next, came the really unpleasant part: she was led into a room that reminded her of one the laboratories at the Exis Station Medical Facility where a huge creature with a crested head turned towards her and said: "Hello there!"

For a moment the child was afraid, but the Jedi robes the alien wore indicated she had nothing to fear. "Wow!" she exclaimed with her mouth agape. "You're so _tall_!" The creature was at least three meters in height.

"That is Norax Inex," the teenage Padawan explained. "He's an Anx from Gravlex Mex."

"Were I when often told I am short for my species," the Jedi Medicorps worker mused with a smile as he turned towards the child. "What is your name child?"

"Revan, Sir," the little girl answered.

"Well, Revan," the Anx said pleasantly. "That look you just had on your face almost exactly matches that the expression I made when I saw a human for the very first time."

"Really?" the child smiled.

"Really," the Norax replied. "And I mistook a full-grown human for a child. But that human was a Jedi and informed of my error."

"That's very funny."

"Yes, I thought you might find it funny, it makes what I have to do a little more pleasant for you," he said uncapping a small pen-sized device to reveal a needle. "I need to get a blood sample and it may hurt a bit."

"Why?"

"Because we need to determine your Force potential and that requires a midichlorian count," the Padawan answered.

The Revan looked a little confused, "What's a midi—"

"—tiny organisms that live inside your cells and determine your ability to channel the Force," the mediworker said.

"But what's a cell?" the child questioned.

Thankfully, Anx very patient creatures with a very complex understanding of biology. "Revan, you've seen what a planet looks like from space right?" the Jedi worker asked.

"Uh-huh."

"Then you already know that big things are made up of a great number of little things."

Revan smiled with understanding, "Like machines; they all have parts."

"Yes," Norax acknowledged, "like machines, but much more complex."

"So I'm made up of smaller parts called cells?" she asked.

"Quite so," the Jedi worker replied. "And many of them have different functions."

"How many of them do I have?"

"So many you couldn't count them all," the Padawan answered.

"Wow!"

"My have your hand please?" the alien asked the little girl. "It will only be a little pin prick."

"Don't worry," the child said reassuringly as she extended out her hand. "I won't cry. It takes a lot to make me cry now. At home one time I fell and scraped my elbow and I cried hours. It sorta sounds stupid now that I think about again."

The alien took the needle-ended part of the device and gently slid it into the tip of the child's index finger.

Revan flinched upon feeling the sting of the needle and watched bright red bead of blood gush up as the alien retracted it. The Anx wiped her finger on a scanner plaque, shortly before bandaging it. He then inserted the plaque into an slot into one of the room's computer consoles and immediately an error message popped up on the display screen saying: ERROR: NO SAMPLE DETECTED.

"Hmph," the Anx said, "I probably placed it upside down." So he removed the plaque and was right about to reinsert it when he noticed there was no blood on it. "It smeared off," he looked back at the child. "Will it be too much trouble if I ask you for another drop?"

The child made a face, then removed her bandage and squeezed the wound producing a crimson dot almost the size of her fingertip which she smeared herself on the plaque Norax held out right before he plugged it back into the console.

The words "ERROR: NO SAMPLE DETECTED" flashed again on the screen.

"That's never happened before," the Padawan said looking at the screen. "Maybe there's something wrong with the computer."

"Perhaps you're right," the Jedi worker said as he ejected the plaque to go to another console. But then, once more, he noticed there was no blood on the card. "Now that _is_ odd."

"What's odd?" the Revan said hopping up and down trying to see what was happening.

"Nothing," the Medicorp worker said reassuringly. "Our scanner is having a little trouble detecting your blood, which means we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way." He opened a drawer on one of cabinets in the room and pulled out a syringe.

"Um, that looks a kinda scary!" the child said instantly knowing that the needle which was longer than one of her fingers was probably be going somewhere she did not want it to be.

"Don't worry, it won't hurt much," the alien and then he tried to explain what he was going to do but the child interrupted.

"—I know how they work!" Revan exclaimed knowing full well that whenever an adult said anything was going not to hurt much, it usually meant that it was going to hurt much more. "I've seen nurses use them back on Exis Station, and they _do_ hurt, _a lot_."

"Now, now, Revan," the teenage Padawan admonished her as he had her take a seat on a chair. "A Jedi should control their fear. Instead to thinking about the needle, focus on the sound of my voice and repeat after me: _There is no emotion; there is peace._

"There is no emotion; there is peace," the child repeated, but even as she said this the Jedi Medicorps worker had already rolled up her sleeve and began checking over her arm in search of sufficiently large vein.

The Padawan remained oblivious, "_There is no ignorance; there is knowledge_" he savored the words as if singing them.

"There is no ignorance; there is knowledge," Revan echoed, while the Anx was tapping at the inner part of her left forearm.

"_There is no passion; there is serenity_"

_Easy for your to say_, Revan thought. _You're not the one getting poked_. "There is no passion; there is serenity," she spoke as she felt a cold wet chill travel up her arm as the Jedi worker smeared it with a strong-smelling disinfectant.

"_There is no chaos; there is harmony_," the Padawan droned on, not the least bit concerned with what was happening.

"There is no chaos," the child paused as she felt Norax's digits, which were thicker than her arm, clamp down right above her elbow, putting pressure on her vein so it could pop up. It was not the needle that concerned her, but that it was being handled by someone so much bigger and stronger than she was. Judging by the strength of his grip, the child figured the Anx could very easily drive the syringe right through her arm if he wanted to. And the teenager in front of her did not get that— "there is harmony."

"_There is no death; there is the Force_," the Padawan finished his recitation and smiled, glad that at least he felt better.

"There is no death," Revan murmured as she was seized by a pang of dread. "There is—_Ouch!_" she exclaimed loudly enough to be heard through the walls of the adjoining room. The child looked down the needle sticking out of her forearm and watched the Jedi worker fill three successive vials with dark red blood.

"What's going on!" a woman in her forties demanded as she urgently stormed into the room, her right had placed instinctually on her the cylindrical object that hung on her belt.

"Nothing, Master Ramunee," the Padawan's eyes widened. He straightened and bowed immediately. "We were trying to perform a midichlorian scan, and the computer couldn't detect the sample. So, Norax had to draw some blood with a syringe, and the subject found it discomforting."

The Jedi Master's questioning brown eyes immediately met the Revan's and sensed pain. "Did you numb her first?"

"No Master, I did not," the Padawan grimaced uncomfortably.

"And why not?" the woman raised her brows.

"Because, I haven't been taught that skill yet and therefore I couldn't do it," other replied.

"But you could have come and gotten someone else who could," the Master Ramunee's eyes narrowed as she looked at the medicorps worker. "Are you finished Norax?"

"Yes, Master," the Anx stood up. "I just applied a bandage to the child's arm."

"Good," the Jedi Master said. She looked down at the child "Come with me, Revan, so we can finish your testing."

The child slid off the chair and immediately grabbed a hold of the Jedi Master's hand, who threw the Padawan a final disapproving glance as she walked out of the room.

Now Revan was seated in an empty room that had what looked like mirror on one if its walls, through the Force she automatically knew it was an observation window with people behind it.

Across the table from her, Jedi Master produced a hand-held device and fingered a few of its buttons. "This is an image emitter," Vici explained. "It contains millions of pictures of everyday objects you would find anywhere around the galaxy. It generates an image at random every few seconds. Without looking at the device, I would like you to concentrate and tell me what I'm looking at."

"And if I don't know the name of something?" the child asked.

"Then describe it as best as you possibly can," the Jedi replied. "Let's begin."

The first image popped up on the emitter's screen, and Revan instantly knew it was a bowl. It was like a guessing game she used to play at home, which she never lost. "That's a bowl," she said confidently.

The Jedi Master remained quiet; her expression never changed. She simply called up the next image which the child recognized as a building, and then the next which was a chair, and then the image after that.

It went on and on for hours, and Revan was getting bored. To keep her mind occupied, the she started alternating the various methods she used to recognize the image being displayed. If she focused on the emitter too long, she instantly knew what every image would be in unbroken succession. But she could also glean the name of the object directly from the Jedi Master's mind, as she had done for several objects whose names she had not known. The third method was the trickiest and the one she used the most: if she concentrated on the Jedi Master, she could see object reflecting in her eyes. So she would stare right at the woman whose face remained expressionless throughout the examination.

The examination continued until there was a light rap at the door. "Please enter," Vici called in the direction of the door.

The door slid open to reveal the massive Anx holding another syringe and five more empty vials. "Master Ramunee," he said apology. "I'm terribly sorry about the interruption."

"That's alright Norax," the Jedi Master said. "What do you need?"

"I'm going to need to draw some more blood from our test subject," he said nervously.

"Again?" the Jedi Master and Jedi candidate asked at the same time.

"I thought you had taken three vials worth," Vici observed.

"I did," the Jedi Medicorps worker said. "All the blood samples I took deteriorated before I could do a proper scan."

"I've never heard of that happening," the Jedi Master said skeptically. "What did the computer say?"

"It didn't find anything," the Anx explained. "No red blood cells, no plasma, no midichlorians—nothing!"

Revan decided to add her thoughts to the mix so long as she was the topic of discussion. "It figures: if you keep poking me, I'm going to run out."

With that the Jedi Master smiled. "It doesn't work that way. We count their concentration on the cellular level, so you can't run out."

"Oh. Okay," the child said slumping her shoulders

"But it was an insightful of you, nonetheless," Vici eyed her, then looked back at the Jedi worker. "If her blood is that volatile, what makes you think that drawing more will get help you get a scan?"

"Because, the Council will want to be certain that we cannot get a scan. So, I'm going to give it one more try."

"But I don't want to get poked again!" the child protested. "I hate needles!"

"Jedi aren't supposed to hate, Revan," Vici cautioned her. "You don't hate anything; you only strongly dislike needles. And I don't blame you; I'm not very fond of them either. But I can make it so you don't feel the pain, by temporarily blocking the signals in your arm from traveling to your brain and telling you that it hurts. You won't feel a thing."

The child pursed her lips together in a frown. "You promise?"

"I promise."

Revan curled her lower lip. "Okay, but it better be the _last_ time."

"Don't worry, child," Norax reassured her, "it will be." And so the Anx drew five more vials of blood, but Vici had intervened and used the Force to numb the little girl's arm.

"Will that be all?" Vici asked the Anx after he finished.

"Yes Master," the Jedi worker said on his way out. "I'm sorry to disturb you; it won't happen again." The Medicorps worker shuffled out, his large muscular tale disappearing behind the sliding door.

The testing continued for another hour, until the Jedi Master announced they were finished.

"How'd I do on the guessing?" the child asked Vici curiously as the woman led her down a corridor to where the Temple's guest housing was located.

"Strangely, you got everything right, except one question," the Jedi Master offered as Revan found it odd that the woman had keyed the numbered dial on what she would later come to realize was the security paneling of the guest room in all but consecutive order.

"Oh? Was that the fifteen-hundred and sixtieth picture?" the little girl asked without being able to help marking the numbers: seven, three, two, eight, one, nine and five.

"Yes," the Vici paused as the door slid open, rather surprised the child remembered or that she could count that high.

"I got that one wrong on purpose," the little girl explained, "it was supposed to be a boat instead of a tree—sorry."

"But why didn't you answer it truthfully. I don't understand."

Revan's cheeks flushed as she repressed a twisted grin. "You were sitting there so quietly. Every answer I gave, you didn't even move; you hardly blinked—like those statues over there," she pointed to a series of decorative statues next to one of the vaulted clearings near the guest room entrance. "I wanted to see what you did if I got one wrong."

* * *

**T**he Senate Finance Committee met later than initially scheduled, in part, due to a private meeting between the Chancellor Sanura and her sub-alternate.

"I don't like this," the Lethan Twi'lek said quietly. "I don't enjoy the prospect of the Senate having to resort to military confrontation."

"I'm not the one who suggested that, Admiral Vinicus did," Antares countered.

"Yes," Sanura added. "But I know you both agree on this matter."

"Only because we've both worked on the reconstruction effort after the war. We would rather that if it comes to arms that we face them outside Republic Space, away from civilians. That is why we have a military to begin with, to defend our people."

"The Jedi do the same thing," the Supreme Chancellor suggested.

Antares shook his head, "The Jedi _don't_ do the same thing. They are counselors and mediators. They defend the weak and the helpless. _But we shouldn't be weak and helpless._ They were never at the Senate's beck and call and were never meant to be the Republic's single line of defense. It was the threat of mutual annihilation that brought the Core Systems together under one banner during the Unification Wars."

"With the help of the Dai Bendu monks," Sanura cocked a finger, knowing the Dai Bendu monks would later develop into the Jedi of old.

"Who only provided a neutral setting and hosted the diplomatic talks that led to the founding of the Republic," Antares clarified. "And even when the Constitution was finally ratified and all parties were in agreement, the Republic still had a standing army, knowing that the Senate and the Order would not always see eye to eye on every issue. And in the millennia following the unified Republic fleet proved invaluable: it was there when Xendor and his band of followers threatened to destroy the Jedi, it was there during the Hundred Years darkness, it was there when Naga Shadow attacked Coruscant and it was there when the Mandalorians attacked Coruscant and the Sith destroyed Ossus. If anything, a strong military has been vital to a strong and prosperous Republic."

"Yes," the Supreme Chancellor agreed, "but it was also there when Constipex ordered it to conduct systematic campaign of mass xenocide."

"And the Jedi _were not_?" the other questioned. "They did nothing. They watched from their lofty white towers and meditated while the galaxy tore itself apart. And let's not delude ourselves; almost all of the past galactic conflicts were kindled by people who were, at one time or another, Jedi themselves or Sith, whose origins can also be traced right back to the Jedi Order—the very same Jedi claim to be the guardians of peace and justice."

Sanura grimaced, realizing the truth of her sub-alternates words. "I just don't want another war. With all the problems it has already, that's the last thing the Republic needs."

"Well, High Admiral Vinicus and the Senator from Mon Calamari were getting ahead of themselves, the issue on the table is not military conflict but military preparedness in the event a conflict proves inevitable," Antares replied now looking at his chronometer. "And the meeting was supposed to start twenty minutes ago; senators don't like to be kept waiting, particularly the one from Muunlisst"

"Alright," she said. "Let's go."

The two made their way down a long corridor. The Supreme Chancellor was just about to walk into the conference room, when Antares grabbed her hand gently.

"Ayannah," he said quietly. "I hope you know why I chose to endorse as your Vice Chair rather than run against you in the Senate."

The Lethan Twi'lek smiled wryly, it had not been her work that had won her the chancellorship, it had been the support of the best rival candidate shrugging off his own nomination and seconding hers. "I still have my theories on that."

"Wonder no more," he said, his blue eyes looked directly into her gold-yellow ones. "Given my experience with the less savory side of sentient nature, I can't be an optimist. You always expect the best from people, and that is what the Republic needs right now. I am always prepared for the worst, and I do not display a rosy confidence that all is well at all times."

"And these proposals are you preparing us for a worse-case scenario," she nodded, "I know."

"If that occurred," her companion cautioned, "and we went to war, your office will carry the burden of two titles: Supreme Chancellor and Supreme Commander of the Republic Forces. And if the Republic Forces remain in their current state, then we'll flirting with disaster."

Sanura breathed heavily, the thought that such a thing was only a worse-case scenario did nothing to alleviate the feeling that Antares had dropped a block of permacrete on her. Supreme Commander of the Republic Forces was a title only existed when the Republic was at war, and, along with the requirement of impeccable military knowledge and experience, any sentient holding that rank also had a third of the Republic Fleet under their direct command. "I know nothing of war strategies and battle tactics; I've spent most of my political career avoiding war. And if we were to come to that, I would ask the Senate to grant that title to a nominee that could guarantee a quick end to all hostilities."

"Understandably," Antares agreed sympathetically. "Let's, at least, be prepared."

The Chancellor nodded as the doors slid open and she and her sub-alternate walked in.

The assembly rose, in respect for the Supreme Chancellor, who usually did not attend Senate committee meetings.

"Please be seated," Antares who chaired the committee declared as he took his seat. "Welcome distinguished Senators, ladies, gentle-beings," he momentarily scanned the room and was surprised to see the Verpine Senator, who was a hermaphrodite—"and everyone who has found a happy medium in-between. The first order of business is the move to immediately direct emergency funding to update all the starfighters in the fleet, as described in page twelve of your report which clearly states that the reason for our casualties last week is Fleet Command not having the funds to properly equip our pilots."

"That will require a loan," K'loc Mnar, a rail-thin Muun, representing Muunilinst and Intergalactic Banking Clan observed. "The emergency accounts do not have sufficient capital for such an undertaking." The Intergalactic Banking Clan was the official guarantor of the Republic's currency and held a position of esteem in the Senate for thousands of years.

"_That we cannot commit to_," Theunas Y'edal, the Ithorian senator added. "_The Republic has already incurred far too much debt trying to rebuild some of the worlds evacuated as a result of the Cron Cataclysm, in addition to the systems ravaged by the Sith and the Mandalorians in the last war._"

"Senator Y'edal has a point," the flaxen-haired Maerna Nuat, the senator from Arkania, agreed. Her pupiless eyes looked directly at the vice-chancellor. "We cannot continue financing the rebuilding effort on the Rimward worlds, continue the skyward expansion on Coruscant, support the Jedi Order, _and_ upgrade our military. How is the Senate going to accomplish everything in this proposal package without going into more debt?"

Antares grimaced, realizing that he had to be very careful as to how he presented the next portion of his proposals. "If you look on the addendum to your reports, there is a portion of the transcript from the Defense Committee meeting this afternoon regarding the size of the Jedi Order. Over the past ten years, in addition to the funds and land granted for the expansion of the Temple, they have continually received the bulk of the Senate's defense spending. Yet, they have had less than a thirty-percent increase in their numbers in over twenty years. Which makes me wonder how well-placed those funds are, considering what military could have done with them—"

"—I object," Master Vrook who was sitting in the very back of the room interrupted. "The share of the Defense Fund money granted to the Order was well spent. The Jedi are far more organized than they have ever been."

"—Organization was not what the Senate had in mind when it granted you that money, Master Vrook. Frankly, I'm _very_ interested in seeing the Temple's book-keeping records, after what the Supreme Chancellor and I learned this afternoon," the vice-chancellor countered, and then he continued speaking to the assembly. "Every year, this body apportions one-hundred billion credits for defense purposes, some of it goes to the Republic Military, but over sixty percent has gone directly into the Jedi Order's coffers for the past ten years. That's almost a trillion Dataries. We could have retrofitted the entire fleet with those credits."

"So you're suggesting limiting the Order's government funding," Vrook was livid, he could not believe what he was hearing.

"No, I'm calling for _completely_ severing all funding for the Jedi Order, with the exception of a six million-credit stipend allotted to it through the Judiciary," Antares replied.

"That's preposterous!" Vrook fumed.

"No, it's necessary," Antares shot back.

"B-but how will the Order be able to fund its operations?"

"The same way you did prior to the war," Supreme Chancellor answered; "through donations."

A disturbing image suddenly formed in the Jedi Master's mind of Jedi standing out on the street-corners and in crowed sections spaceports all over the galaxy, asking for hand-outs. But before he could express his disbelief, Master Edan spoke for him.

"The Order is grateful for any help it can get, Your Honors, and is fully aware that it has thrived on the generosity of the Senate," the Deralian Jedi Master said calmly. "It was never the intention of the Council to monopolize the defense-fund money. And if the Senate so whishes, we are confident that we can find the necessary donors."

"Well, I'm very pleased to hear that Master Edan," Antares replied. "That will make voting on whether to send this issue before the full assembly weigh far easier on all of our consciences." And as simply as that, a vote was called and when the finally tally was taken ,seventy-six out of a hundred Senators voted for re-assigning the year's Defense Fund to the Republic Fleet, and another twenty Senators gave their approval to send the second portion of the Vice-Chancellor's military improvement proposal for consideration by the entire Senate.

Through the rest of the meeting, Vrook stood glaring at Edan. _What were you thinking?_ he demanded of his former master through the Force. _You just sat there and all but told him to sever the Order's funding_.

_I sat there and told the truth, Vrook_, Edan countered. _What else could I do? And besides, the Council was already concerned that the Senate's funding gave it too much involvement in our affairs_.

_How do you know?_ Vrook asked. _You're not even on the Council. You refused that appointment years ago!_

_Only because I hate politics_.

* * *

**T**redda, a brown-furred Drall that was tending the front desk in the lobby Coronet Intergalactic Hotel, was fairly certain the dark-robbed woman in front of him was a Jedi, but he was unwilling to risk being wrong so he decided on a standard greeting: "Good evening, Madam, how can I help you this evening?"

Arren bowed politely. "Hello, I am Master Arren Kae. I'm was told by a certain Master Edan, that you may be holding something for me?"

"Ah, another Jedi, a tall fellow with white robes, and a covered face?" the Drall asked scratching his head.

"That would be him, yes."

"Hmm," Tredda looked down at his desk and pulled out a small flimsiplast envelope. "I don't have anything here from Master Edan, but I do have something addressed to you here. One of political aides dropped it off a few minutes before you came—Here you go."

"Thank you," Arren said. She quickly turned around and opened the small white envelope. There was a small security access pass, a long with a short note that read: ARREN, I WILL BE WAITING IN SUITE 1560. MAKE CERTAIN YOU DON'T LOSE THE PASS.

_Fair enough_, the young Jedi Master thought as she walked towards the turbolift and waited for the doors to open. Once inside, she tried to think of how exactly to break the news to her former Master that his planet along with all of his people had been wiped out.

_Master Edan_, she thought as the door opened and she stepped off onto the fifteen floor, flashing her pass card at the armed sentry in front of the turbolift. Most of the Senate officials visiting for emergency meetings were lodged on the same floor, hence the security detail. _You know that attack last week? Yeah, the one with all the casualties. Well, guess what? The Mandalorians also leveled Deralia . . ._ She paused, reviewing her thoughts.

_Wow, Arren! That was brilliant!_ She chastised herself. _After all, it's no big deal, right? He just lost his planet with everyone on it._ The young Jedi Master shook her head and sighed as saw the doors to Suite 1560 directly ahead of her. _Why don't you throw a party and invite a band while your at it?_ She took a deep breath trying to calm herself, knowing that Master Edan was not going to take the news lightly. _Okay here goes_, she thought pushing the button to the suite's entrance.

The doors slid open, and she walked right through when all of a sudden she was greeted by a gruff voice.

"May I help you?" Yusanis of Echani said as he stared down at woman in her mid-twenties, who by her attire, was evidently a Jedi, but the color of her hair and the way it framed her face was the first thing he noticed. He found her features to be a stark and yet pleasant contrast to the mostly white-haired women of his homeworld.

Arren looked up and saw a blue-robed Senatorial Guard, decked in full regalia: complete with a plume of black synth-hair flowing from the crest of his helmet. Judging by the guard's snow-white brows and eye-lashes, the young Jedi Mater gathered that he was an Echani. She glanced around the room, seeing three other similarly-clothed guards looking her way. "Um, yes," she said looking up at the guard in front of her. "Yes, you can," she produced her security pass card and Master Edan's note from her robe pocket. "Master Edan said he would meet me in this room, has he arrived yet?"

"Where did you get that?" Yusanis eyed her suspiciously.

"Master Edan left it for me with the concierge down in the lobby," Arren answered.

"He was not supposed to," the Echani guard said grumpily. "That's a high-security VIP pass given only to members attending the emergency committee meetings."

"Well, he _did_ give it to me," the Jedi Master insisted. A stubborn spark flashed in her turquoise eyes as she pulled out the note with Master Edan's handwriting and showed it to him.

The guard seemed to consider it for a moment, eyeing it with great reluctance. "Alright, so your story does check out," he replied somewhat nervously has he handed it back to her, all of a sudden feeling his cheeks burn beneath his helmet's cheek-guards. "Master Edan is busy seeing Vice-Chancellor Antares to discuss funding for the Jedi Order. They are in an extended meeting, and I do not anticipate him leaving for at least another couple of hours," he pulled out a datapad. "But I think it would be best if you tried him tomorrow."

"Look, I'm traveling on Official Jedi Business," Arren insisted, "and it is of the utmost importance that I speak to him immediately."

The Echani breathed heavily in annoyance. It was not the Jedi's tenacity that bothered him, since he would have found it admirable in almost any other instance, but in the current situation it was an unwelcome nuisance. "As I have already explained, he is in an _extended_ meeting with His Honor the vice-chancellor. And an interruption would prove most indecorous."

"Fine," the Jedi Master's eyes narrowed. "I'll wait then."

"As you wish," the Senatorial Guard said mechanically; then he extended his hand out. "_Eh-em_" he made a suggestive cough that Arren found to be a little odd.

She frowned suspiciously. "Yes, what do you do want, now?"

The guard rolled his eyes; he did not think he had to ask. "Your lightsaber?" he pointed to the cylindrical hilt that hung on her belt.

"_Excuse me!_" Arren asked indignantly. "No! This is a Jedi's weapon; it's a symbol of honor and I will not part with it."

"Lady," the Echani declared incredulously, "if you think, for one second, I'm going to let you get within ten meters of the vice-chancellor brandishing a weapon that could cut a grown man down as if he were butter, you _seriously_ need your head examined." Yusanis scowled at the young Jedi, he had no intention of a repeat performance of what had happened on the Senate floor two decades earlier. Jedi or not, for the hundred years no one was allowed with a weapon near any Senate official except his, her, or its, guards. "Don't make me ask again."

Arren sighed, realizing refusing her to part with her lightsaber was not going to get her anywhere. Of course, the dim-witted Echani had no clue that a Jedi Shadow deprived of her weapon was no less deadly. "_Fine_," she said grudgingly, unclipping her lightsaber and handing it to the Senate Guard. If Blueboy wanted to get his jollies by following every rule to the letter, that was fine with her. Had she really wanted to harm the vice-chancellor, she would done it already and no one could have stopped her.

Yusanis quickly took the young woman's lightsaber. And she was almost impressed to find that he was familiar enough with the weapon that he instantly located the safety-nozzle ring, up at the top of the hilt, and turned it so that it could not ignite immediately. He then slipped it carefully in what must have been pocket in his heavy blue cloak.

"Oh, and while you are at it," he eyed her. "May I see your Jedi id card?"

"What for?" she asked. "You just saw my lightsaber; that should be enough!"

"And that's what they all say," the Echani countered. "Look, you don't have to show me your id. I can always put you under arrest."

"No, wait!" she exclaimed. _What's next? A body cavity search? _She reached into one of her tabard pockets and pulling out her standard id, that was her cover as a Jedi Guardian, so quickly that her other card slipped through and hit the parquet floor.

"Well, what's this?" the Echani said as he bent down and picked up the thin piece of plastic.

_Can this day just get any worse?_ Arren wondered as she quickly slipped her fake cover id into her tunic sleeve now that the guard had her real one.

"Look at this!" Yusanis called to one of his fellow guards, holding the card out while another guard approached and looked it over. "Ever see one of these before?"

His fellow guard shook his head.

"Hmph," Yusanis' blue eyes narrowed as he looked over the young Jedi's identification card. "Arren Kae, Jedi Spy," the Echani grinned handing it back to her. "That sounds like one of those really old low-budget holoflicks."

Arren winced as she realized somehow the guard also knew about the Shadow Concord, but she quickly tried to rationalize it: _Get a grip, Arren. He's a Senate Guard which means he's with Republic Security, and we've worked with them in the past_. "That is _Master_ Kae to you, and I'm a Jedi Shadow," she corrected him firmly, dropping any hope of concealment.

"Same difference," the Senatorial Guard replied curtly, as he gestured for her to sit down on of the couches in the room.

Three hours later, Arren was still waiting. She glanced at her chrono and then back at the Echani guard. "I don't understand why I have to wait to speak to a member of my own order," she said with exasperation, getting up and pacing.

"Because you're name was not on Master Edan's guest list that he declared earlier this morning," the Echani answered.

"He wasn't expecting me to be here."

"Of course, that's why you're not on the list," the guard added.

_Did you think that up all by yourself?_ The Jedi Master shook her head, in her opinion the overzealous guard either knew exactly what he was doing or was completely clueless as to what was really happening. Her eyes narrowed and she gently reached with the Force to give the Echani's mind a little nudge. "_Maybe I don't have to be on the list_," she offered.

The guard stood expressionless for a moment, as if not quite sure what was happening, but a few seconds later scowled at her. "You've just made a very stupid mistake," he said ominously. "Now I'm going to have to take you into custody."

"For what?" Arren asked. "What did I do?"

"Don't be cute with me," Yusanis shook his head. "You know exactly what you did: you used the Force to mislead and or manipulate an Officer of the Republic."

"That's not a crime!"

"No, using the Force is not, but misleading and manipulating a Republic Officer is," he replied and he gestured to his fellow guards. "Seize her!"

The Jedi Master watched as one of the other guards approached her. One thing was certain: she _was not_ going to get arrested. So she stood there waiting for the Echani to put the security cuffs on her, biding her time until he was right in front of her. She looked down as she felt another Senatorial Guard creep up behind her and start scanning her for hidden weapons. It gave her the perfect opportunity for all she did was lightly brush a finger on the guard's nose when he least expected and he fell limp.

Yusanis was just about slip the cuffs onto the Jedi's wrists when out of nowhere he saw on of his fellow guardsman collapse. The Echani was caught off-guard for a second, and a second was all that Arren needed for the next thing he knew both his wrist bad been pulled in a position causing him enough discomfort to raise his arms in order to alleviate the pain. Arren brushed him aside maintaining an iron grip on both his wrists.

The Echani now found himself back to back with the Jedi Master. It happened so fast he had no idea he was being flipped over until his feet were already off the floor. Only then did he remembered to raise his legs, preventing an excruciating fall on to his stomach.

Arren frowned in annoyance. Due to some quick thinking on the part of the guard, instead of landing on his belly he landed on his feet exactly where he had been earlier.

"That was pointless," the Echani observed.

By now the other two guards had rushed in to help, but the Jedi quickly flung her hand up and away they went into the wall, knocked unconscious.

Meanwhile the Yusanis took advantage of the Jedi's momentary distraction and swung his foot in a high roundhouse kick aiming for her head, but all he got was air molecules for she had already ducked out of the way, closing the space between him.

"And that wasn't?" the Arren asked as she slammed her fist against his chin in an upper cut that almost knocked his helmet off. She wasted no time landing a powerful snap kick to the guard's groin. It was a blow that would have sent most male humanoids down on the floor writhing in pain, but to her dismay it had no effect on Yusanis other than making him more determined.

The Echani Grandmaster now resorted using pointed punches, trying to attack several pressure points along Arren's body. Yet the Jedi quickly caught on, using the Force to absorb some of the pain, and using tensing her muscles to render his attacks useless.

"I see you know pressure point technique," the Echani observed as he threw another punch her way.

Arren used her left arm to sweep it upwards away her body and countered with another blow of her own. "Their called meridians!"

"Hmph," he said turning out of the way of her punch, "we only teach that to the high-level instructors." With that, the Jedi planted an agonizing jab at his left side right at the intersection between his front and back torso plating. It caused part of his arm to go numb when he recoiled away.

"Shadows learn that the first six weeks of combat training," Arren shot back as they encircled each other, "to manipulate Force flow points on an adversary's body."

"You're good," the guard admitted. "Very good, actually."

A sweeping kick that came out of nowhere knocked him off balance and right on to his backside.

"And I get better!" the young woman declared.

Yusanis flipped himself on to his feet; he grabbed his force pike and lunged it at her.

"How come you get a weapon and I don't?" the young woman quickly pulled away out of the path of the vibro-edged tip that could easily rip right through a steel bulkhead, but caught it half way. That was when the a tug-of-war for it began.

"Argh!" the guard clenched his teeth fought with all his strength to regain control of his weapon. "Because you're the one who's breaking the law!" he tried getting a kick to her knee, but Arren brought her foot up, letting her shin break his momentum. The Echani was strong: having trained since he had taken his first step, he was built like a hover tank. The Jedi was no pushover either, but she definitely looked more like a dancer than a fighter. Yet the Force cared nothing for appearances, the Force was all about what really was. And in this instance, Arren had the advantage: she simply cocked an eyebrow and gave Yusanis a shove through the Force that tore his grip from his weapon and sent him flying, crashing against the reception desk with a loud _thunk_.

The Echani coughed. Hitting the desk had knocked the wind out of him, and, considering the pain he felt as he gasped for air, it had also cracked a few ribs. He was just about to press the panic-button on the desk comm when all of a sudden the Jedi threw the Force spike right in his direction. He dodged out of the way just in time see it pass just mere centimeters away from his face and pierce right through the desk's comm paneling, bursting into a shower of sparks. He eyed the young woman who stood a few meters away with disbelief. "How often do you practice?" Yusanis asked coughing as he rose to his feet slowly.

"Six hours a day," Arren replied giving the guard some room, she was not about to attack a defenseless opponent, at least not while he was getting up.

"Figures," he said checking himself over. _Alright, thankfully, no other broken bones_.

"_Figures!_" the Jedi asked suspiciously. "_Figures how?_"

The Echani turned once more and charged her. If he could not defeat her standing, then he could always wrestle her to the floor where his weight would give him the advantage. At this the Jedi did not move, she simply lifted her hand with her small rosy palm in a "stop" gesture bringing up an invisible barrier in the Force. A loud cracking noise that resounded almost made Arren cringe in empathy as the guard hit the Force equivalent of a brick wall. She was now very thankful that Senatorial Guards had to wear helmets.

Meanwhile, Yusanis could not recall ever seeing so many stars, not even on clear night. "If figures," he managed to say, as his head was still spinning, "you're a Jedi."

"What does _that_ mean?" Arren asked not quite happy with the where the conversation was going.

The Echani fingered his helmet expecting to find a big crack at the point of impact. For a Jedi, he found her to be a little on the naïve side. "Well," he grimaced as he approached her again, "_you know_."

Arren bent her knees anticipating yet another attack as she eyed him quizzically. "I'm afraid I don't follow."

"All that repressed sexual energy," he rolled his eyes trying to explain: "You have nothing to do with your time between meditating and missions, so you practice. I've noticed the caliber of your warriors has improved greatly now that you've prohibited that sort of thing, but it's kind of sad you have to resort to _that_."

With that the young woman saw red. "Did you just get brain-damaged or are you begging to get your ass kicked?" Later on in her meditations that evening, Arren would realize that she had overreacted: in the heat of the moment she completely forgot that Echani, who often sparred unclothed, had very different criteria for appropriate conversation topics. Many were often put off at their willingness to discuss certain things openly that in other human cultures were taboo, which led to the widely-circulated and mistaken belief that Echani had no shame.

"Wow!" Yusanis exclaimed has he feinted to the left and then back to the right, and finally managed to get a punch in that knocked the Jedi off balance, "that's very becoming language for a Jedi Master. Is that what they teach you these days?" Now that the Jedi had backed off, he was able to come around and grab her from behind.

"Grrr," Arren groaned half in annoyance and half in effort as she bent forward trying to flip her opponent over. "Which would you prefer: a mild insult or your brains splattered all over the floor?" They were now a precarious dance of who could get their foot in the right position to knock the other one off-balance first.

"Point taken," the Echani agreed as he continued shoving his foot towards the back of Arren's knee in an attempt to make her fall on the floor. "So are you and Master Edan . . . _you know_?" He was quick to avoid several of her attempts at placing him in stasis by putting her hand on an exposed area of his face.

"Are we _what_, exactly?" the young Jedi demanded frustratingly as she struggled to maintain her footing.

"Bonded," he answered, finally hooking his foot around her ankle. "That is the only way you people manage to have any kind of normal human relationship anymore—if you want to call that normal, that is."

"Ungh! No! I've never done _that_!" Arren was now fighting to keep herself on her feet just as much as she was fighting not to loose her temper. She could feel the tension mounting in the adductor muscles of her right thigh. The harder she pushed against the Echani the sharper and sharper the pain became, until she had to use the Force to deal with the burning sensation of her overstrained sinews as they began to tear. _That's going to hurt in the morning_, she thought as she finally gave way and allowed herself fall, but not before tucking her chin and bending forward using her opponent's weight to take him down with her in a forward tumble that slammed them both against the wooden floor, with the Echani absorbing much of the impact.

"Obviously!" Yusanis declared as he rolled over and pinned the Jedi face down on the floor.

The young woman wrenched one of her arms free from underneath and used the Force to raise her torso a few decimeters off the floor, as Echani bared down on her. Eventually she slipped her other arm forward pushing off the floor with her right palm and her left forearm. "What would make you even think _that_!" she exclaimed as she shifted her weight onto her left arm and jabbed her elbow towards the guard's face.

"The urgency of your demand to see him," the other replied as he rolled out of the way just in time to avoid getting a broken nose.

"You have a very twisted mind!" she shouted as she got up on one knee, she tried hobbling up but the razor-sharp pain in her inner thigh testified that she had torn a muscle, clear off the bone by the heat she felt in the surrounding area. That was when the Echani guard tackled her bringing her down on her back staring at her face to face.

Yusanis' eyes bore down on the woman beneath him, so close that he could feel the raising and falling of her rib cage and warmth of each labored breath she took against his face. There was rhythmic hammering against his torso armor plating that must have been his heart beating, but then, he was surprised to learn it was not his alone. Perhaps it had been the effort they each had put into the melee, or the extraordinary amount of training each had received, or the result of pressing his full weight down on her body, but whatever the explanation, in that moment, he felt the young woman's heart beat in perfect synchrony against his.

He beheld his adversary, her gold-brown hair in a tangle of dank curls sticking to parts of her face, her flushed cheeks covered in dew-like beads of sweat, some of them rolling down her nose and down her lips which by now were a lush coral pink, pinched with determination. And then he looked into her eyes which burned with indignation hotter than two binary stars; he had never seen anyone so driven, so relentless . . . so utterly beautiful. Just seeing his own reflection glaring back up at him, nearly unnerved him. For a few seconds he ceased to be Yusanis the Senatorial Guard, famed Echani Grandmaster, an honorable husband and a faithful friend, he was a child gazing in awe and the most magnificent creature he had ever seen in his life. A wave of anguish washed over him, realizing he had just met the woman of his dreams, and that all he could to was sit and stare half-dumfounded. He hesitated a bit, trying to remember what he was going to say . . .

"Why are you putting up with me then?" he barely managed his first sentence. "You could easily kill me right now—What's holding you back?"

The Jedi managed roll herself over and slam him hard against the parquet. "Because," she said stubbornly, "I'm not trying to hurt you, you snow-headed Echani nerf-herder!"

Yusanis considered this for a moment as he fought back against her Force-enhanced grip. "Could have fooled me," he observed.

"I'm just trying to do my duty—" she said as the he now rolled the other way and pinned her down once more.

"And there we have it," he declared. "I'm trying do mine. So you're either going to end up killing me or you're going to have to give up!"

"Or I could just wait until you tire out," she suggested as she used her abdominal muscles to raise her shoulders off the floor only to be pushed immediately back down again.

"Don't count on it," the Echani said forcefully.

That was when the doors to the next room slid open, and small T-series astromech droid rolled out and came to grinding halt. The droid surveyed the room, its visual focusing lens moving forward and back uncertainly. It let out an astonished "_Tweet-Beep!_" Spinning back around, it rolled back in the direction from where it came as fast as its gears would allow.

Then a tall black-haired man stopped through the doorway. Surprised at the little droid's reaction, he looked up and froze. Antares' pale blue eyes bulged as he cast a horrified glance at the room before him. The furniture had been moved, with pillow cushions thrown haphazardly all over the floor. Two dust-covered blue-armored Senatorial Guards lay unconscious next to each other against the wall with holes the size of their helmets scarring the otherwise perfect gesso. Strewn up against the couch, another guard lay with his face down, also knocked out by the look of him. There was spear-like object sticking out from the desk near the door, with smoke and sparks still rising from its electric paneling. And last, but not least, his mouth fell agape as he saw the lead guard in charge of his security detail holding down a young woman in Jedi robes in an extremely compromising position.

"Arren!—Yusanis!" Master Edan's voice was full of shock and indignation.

"_What, the hell, is going on here!_" the vice-chancellor and the Jedi Master demanded at the exact same time.


	9. Chapter 9: Choice and Consequence

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," Issac Newton

**A**lthough the misunderstanding leading up to Master Arren Kae's brawl with one of the Vice-Chancellor's guards, took some uncomfortable moments to sort out, telling Master Edan that all but one of his people had been killed paled in comparison. An awkward silence hung in the air, as the young woman waited for some for of acknowledgement from her former master. Yet for the longest time he said nothing. His dark silhouette cut through the glittering Coronet skyline like a thundercloud ready to burst. Deralians seldom showed their faces, except to family, believing that most humans were shallow and too quick to judge one another by appearance. Out of countless students, Arren was one of the few who knew the face behind his hooded headdress.

The window lights reflected off his dark hair, and in the dimly lit room she could not make out the expression on his face. But the young Jedi Master knew him well enough to know that he was troubled. His head was bent, and, for a moment, Arren thought she heard a single anguished sob after she broke the dismal news.

She laid her hand on his shoulder, trying to console him, but this only made him feel worse as he shook her away. The young Jedi Master felt her heart sink as she saw the faint glimmer of a tear trickle down Edan's cheek.

"I should have been there," he declared finally, his resolute voice was on the very edge of a whisper. "I would have stopped them."

"You couldn't have," the younger Jedi Master reasoned as gently as she could. "You would have been killed as well."

"You don't understand, Arren—They were _my people_, I should have realized when it happened"—he paused, breathing heavily, as if torn by some terrible revelation— "_I should have felt it—I should have known._"

"You were far away—you couldn't have known."

"That is _my_ failure!"

"Blame isn't going to bring them back, Master," Arren offered diplomatically as she had done in her years as his padawan. Between many Jedi Masters and their former students the title of Master was a sign of respect, but for Arren it was a term of endearment. "It's over."

Edan winced. _It is over_, he thought. The ancient bloodline he had long ago nearly sacrificed his soul for was spent. Only one other remained, beside himself. "And the child?" he enquired, managing to catch his breath. "What _else_ can you tell me?"

"I don't know," his former student replied, "Master Nomi didn't give any specifics, only that Master Kreia found a Deralian orphan that survived the attack."

"Then I will look into it as soon as I return to Coruscant," he said.

Arren paused, trying to remember what little Edan had told her about Deralia other than the people were very insular and that they were all Force-sensitive. If the child that Kreia had found was young enough, then the Jedi Order was a natural choice. "You could contact Master Nomi," she suggested. "She'll probably tell you more than she told me."

"I will," Edan replied fervently, but with news of this attack, there are more pressing matters at hand."

* * *

**T**he hour was early: right before dawn. Revan eyes were glued to the lights and spindly tall buildings outside the window of the room where Master Ramunee had left her. The strong urge to draw took hold of her again, and so she triggered the lights and jumped down out of bed. Her tiny feet shuffled across the slate floor as she gathered enough speed to fling herself onto the adult-sized chair of the desk that stood across from her. She propped herself up just below the waist and then pulled her feet up to follow the rest of her. Then she grabbed the flimsi pad and pen off the desk and slid off the chair, settling herself belly down on the floor where she began working.

The flimsi quickly turned into a whimsically-detailed scribble. A single large circle stood in the center of the sheet with tree-like figures shooting out of it. There were several large oval-like objects encircling it, the same figures she had used to depict Mandalorian Dreadnaughts in another drawing. She put in basilisks too, but they were dots: thousands and thousands of them. She had to be careful about how she drew them; she did not want them confused with the larger vessels. She had difficulties believing there were more ships that she could draw and that the further away they were the smaller they looked. And these were not small vessels; they were huge, just like the ones in front. The child grew dissatisfied; how could anyone tell from her drawing that all the ships were big capital ships? This was not like the fleet she had seen the previous week; this was bigger, _much_ bigger—at least a hundred times bigger. But it mattered little how many ships there were; they filled up the entire page surrounding the circle: enough of them to kill a planet or everyone on a planet.

Revan was really starting to miss not having any color to work with for then her drawing would have been obvious to anyone. She could have filled the big things firing down on the planet one color and made the big ships behind them a different color. Then the basilisks would be a different color too, so no one would confuse them or think the explosions she had drawn were trees. That was when she drew in more, cloaking the bleak planet surface in a forest of devastation. After she could no longer fill in the page, she stopped. She picked it up, rose to her feet, and walked over to the window. She squinted up at the sky until her eyes were two narrow slits, but it was no use: with all the lights from the buildings and ships, she could barely make out any stars at all, let alone the one encircled by a planet that was just about to be overtaken.

She looked down at her drawing and then back up with a stubborn defiant look. Mandalore was out there somewhere, a being so horrible that he killed planets just because he could. Every light in the sky was in peril, and the child felt a dull ache of helpless sadness as she tried to imagine a cheerless sky with no stars. From what her young eyes had seen, the Mandalorians were bad enough to go after those too.

* * *

**A** strange and prickled chill traveled Mandalore's spine as he found himself turning away from the view port where, for the past half-hour, he watched clan ships jumping into system several light years away from their next intended target. He had slowed the invasion pace since his last communication with the Sith, but his determination remained unchecked. _The attack on Ardilo will go ahead, despite the Sith Lord's warnings_.

"_Mand'alor_," Cyar'ika, his newly-chosen deck Commander, a Mandalorian warrior from the Jen'uri clan alerted him. "Clan Voraalk has just reported in, we now have more than enough ships for the assault."

_One thousand one-hundred and twenty-three ships_, he thought. Some were Dreadnaughts of Republic design, but many more were Mandalorian adaptations, the clans' response to _auretiise_ technology: War Galleys, seven-hundred meter-long capital ships combining both Republic developed turbo-laser technology and Mandalorian Iron armor and Star Chariots, smaller, faster ships roughly the size of Republic Troop carrier, capable of carrying fifty Meteor-class drop ships. If the Sith War had been a strategic debacle for the Mandalorians, it had been an overwhelming technological victory. No longer did basilisk riders drag their more destructive weaponry behind them in battle. Now, atomic-compression warheads could be launched from space and lock onto an unsuspecting target, while basilisk riders either harassed their defenses or provided cover fire for the attacking ship. "Send word, to all participating clan leaders. The tactical briefing will begin in half an hour, I expect all senior commanders to be present," Mandalore replied. "You have your orders."

"Yes, Mandalore," the warrior said bowing before she returned to her post.

For a moment, he gazed at the computer astrogation board studying his next conquest. "Ardilo," he mused. "The key to the Rim."

Thirty minutes later, those same words were heard loudly by all attending the meeting. "As a hyperspace gateway it is of no particular consequence," Mandalore explained. "The planet is poor in all but one resource: its native species. Ardilo is the most prolific producer of narcotic spice on the Rim; it rivals the Hutt and Exchange cartels. Unlike glitterstim, which is mined, ardila is a compound secreted by the locals. Over the past seven years the Ardilonians have quadrupled their production of ardila, making it the cheapest and most available addictive spice in the galaxy. Our goal is not to destroy the Ardilonians but to completely halt all distribution of ardila, turning it from the most widely available spice on the market into the most sought-after."

"—how does the spice trade have anything to do with our campaign against the Republic?" Cassus asked.

"Because, a war takes more than just those that are willing to fight," Mandalore replied calmly. "A war takes resources and capital to acquire weapons and ships. What's more, Ardilo is not on friendly terms with the Republic on account of its spice production. The Republic's own laws prevent it from retaliating after our attack on their fleet; the Senate has long-standing statutes stipulating an attack on a Republic system is both necessary and sufficient to justify military action. Therefore, we will not attack any Republic system until I decide we're ready. Until then, we will maintain covert operations, infiltrating and converting the disenfranchised populace of our targeted planets to our side."

"That may take the pressure off politically, but how does it help our ultimate goal?" the chieftain of Clan Maar'at was the next to speak.

"Simply," Mandalore continued; "the Republic guarantees its currency through the Banking Clan. The value of the Republic Datari is backed up by the Muuns' vast deposits of precious metals. But the market price of one kilo of ardila is nearly double a kilo of Republic bullion, and when we're done squeezing the market, it will be worth five times as much. We sit on the production of ardila spice and rely on those who are willing pay the asking price to finance our war for us. We use the Republic's market economy against it. The Senate will not protect Ardilo because it will see our attack as a convenient blow dealt to the spice cartels. Ultimately it is the Datari, not the Senate or the Chancellor that rules the Republic and the munitions and ship manufacturers know this."

His gloved hands keyed up the control panel and a holomap of a brown sphere erupted from the emitter in the center of the room. "First, our basilisk riders will knock out their plasma-based air-defense gunnery." With that several of the flickering of blue lights firing at the small insect-looking basilisks disappeared.

"After their air defenses are taken out, our capital ships will move into position and begin the bombardment"—the display now showed large laser beams coming off ships in orbit— "irradiating their food supply and cutting off all outside access from their hives. Once we have isolated them, we delay landing our surface infantry for two weeks."

Upon hearing this, one of the warriors immediately objected, "But, Mand'alor, why so long? Why don't we engage immediately?"

"Because I haven't chosen the Ardilonians because they pose a challenge or a threat," the Mandalorian commander answered. "I've chosen them because controlling them gives us an advantage. By cutting off their food-supplies we starve their nests, effectively limiting their numbers. After several weeks we will offer them simple terms no different than the terms they had under their old system, food in exchange for ardila thereby creating an artificial demand for the spice."

"Which in turn will raise demand and cost for it," another Mandalorian of Twi'lek origin explained with understanding, "giving us enough credits to supply ourselves indefinitely."

"Precisely," Mandalore agreed. "And by the time the Republic realizes this, we will have already stockpiled enough ardila to quadruple our current armaments. The ship manufacturers will build ships for the highest bidder, especially those like Sienar. We use the credits gained from the ardila trade to raise the bidding cost of shipbuilding. So that if the Senate chooses to upgrade its current fleet, it will risk of minting more credits than the Muuns will finance. Eventually, the Muuns will refuse to continue backing the Datari, and at that point, system will turn against system. The Republic will splinter off into various factions that will squabble over control of hyperspace routes, the division of its fleet, and resources. Then we crush them, sector by sector."

"It seems more like _auretiise_ plan," Caldar Ordo ventured, "the Mandalore before you would have never considered it."

"And that's where he failed," the Mandalore replied, his voice laced with ice. "The Republic is not held together by common language, ideology, or common goals; it is held together by its economy. We will not be diluting our efforts, I"—he paused correcting himself— "_We_ are opening another front: an economic front, a front where the Republic can only loose."

"—which ensures our victory!" Cassus added with understanding.

"You're orders are all clear. Return to your ships, and prepare your clans for battle. We launch in one hour." With that he raised his fist in the air and shouted: "_Oya Manda!_"

"_Oya Mand'alor!_" The others shouted in response.

* * *

**V**ice-Chancellor Antares' guest suite was still in disarray from the earlier brawl between one of his guards and Jedi Master earlier that evening, but the politician's attention was focused on describing the news of another Mandalorian with two of his more trusted friends, High Admiral Vinicus and Director Tabari. The three men had known each other since serving together in the Sith War. The new-comer to the group was Admiral Halan, who felt uncomfortably out of place and wondered if there was information to be passed along, why it was not being passed along the usual chain of command? But upon when hearing of the attack on Deralia, admiral's blood boiled.

"So the Jedi are certain there was an attack on Deralia before our fleet was attacked?" Halan asked.

"Why weren't we told?" Vinicus questioned angrily. "Why did the Order sit on this information? It could have saved thousands of lives!"

"Apparently they learned too late; Master Edan said they found an eyewitness whom they believe is the only survivor: a young child."

Halan shook his head in dismay. "Those barbarians! A military target is one thing, a civilian target—inexcusable!"

"Nevertheless, there's very little that can be done since Deralia is not Republic world," Tabari reminded him.

"Yes and at the rate the Senate is going, our children will be speaking Mandalorian," Vincus offered. "It's going to take months if not years to back your legislation, Vice-Chancellor."

"Unfortunately, the Senate moves at it's own pace," Antares nodded. "Getting tens of thousands of senators to agree on anything these days without pressure is nearly impossible."

"Pressure as in loosing a system or two?" Vinicus retorted. "That's insanity!"

"Hopefully it won't get to that point," the Vice-Chancellor noted as he turned towards Halan. "That is why Admiral Halan is here, he's going to help the Senate make up its mind."

"_Me!?_" Halan's brown eyes widened. "How, in the nine hells, will I do that?"

"That is what I am about to explain," the vice-chancellor replied. "Politics is a lot like taxidermy, my friend. Just like there's more than one way to skin a vornskyr, there is certainly more than one way influence legislation."

* * *

**A** layer of thick morning mist hung about Treasure Ship Row, a bazaar located on the edge of Coronet's infamous crime-infested Blue Sector where all kind of shady characters gathered. Zerj Varel could feel the fur on the back of his neck rise with apprehension; the young Bimm journalist did not feel comfortable with his source's latest location. But then again, his source was not just any source, but _the source_ on the inner workings of the Republic Senate. His relationship to this anonymous informant began years ago while he was still working as an intern for HoloNet News; his office received an anonymous tip regarding information on Senators who had taken bribes from the Czerka Corporation. His supervisor at the time decided to send him to make contact. Several of the more prominent staff members from the news service would later comment that the unnamed informant had found the perfect journalist; although hesitant to write story on such a controversial topic, he seemed too afraid of never advancing beyond his position as intern. And with that one story his career was set. Although he had several close calls where he was under investigation and even put on trial, every time that happened one high-priced celebrity barrister, on the payroll of an anonymous sponsor, would step in and wiggle him out of legal trouble.

He had the nagging suspicion that person protecting him was the same exact informant responsible for his stories. And over time, he also began to suspect that, whoever this source was, it had to be someone who was extremely well acquainted with all branches of the Republic government. Yet he could never confirm his suspicions, for his source seemed to take a playful delight eluding any attempt to learn his, her or its identity. His contacts never met him in the same location. Usually the information came by holochip, but it was always delivered by a completely different individual: one time it had been male Wookie, the next time an elder Ithorian, and the time after that a Human child.

Varel stared down at his chrono and tried to keep from shivering. The alley was dark, and his species' shortness made him an easy target. He resolved he would wait five more minutes before returning to the comfort of his hotel room, when all of a sudden a large hand reached out from the shadows and grabbed him.

Instinctively, the Bimm began to scream but his voice was cut off by a stern command. "—Oh hush!" he heard a low human's voice coming from a hooded figure that materialized out of the darkness like a black oil slick. "I'm not going to hurt you, Zerj Varel. So will you please dispense with the hysterics? I'm here to give you something."

"W-who are you?" the Varel questioned as he tried to gain control of himself.

"A messenger like you," the man replied as he slipped a holochip into the Bimm's three-digit hand. "This _must_ make the morning holocast."

"What is it?" asked the frightened journalist.

"Self-explanatory," the figure answered as it dissipated into the darkness leaving the young Bimm alone in the alley.

* * *

**I**gnoring the background noise from the holovision projector, Supreme Chancellor Ayannah Sanura snorted disapprovingly at one of the flismi cards that Trov Al'krey, her Communications Secretary, had handed her. The Bothan always seemed know what journalists wanted to hear. She trusted his natural aptitude for speech-writing implicitly, but the state memorial service that day required more attention to detail. "Burning stars, Torv! What were you thinking?" she asked looking over the next flimsi card. "Yes, the attack was unprovoked but I'm not about to call it _unforgivable_. That's going to send the message that we're not even considering a diplomatic resolution, and that we're equally anxious to spill more blood. Hasn't there been enough death?"

"If I may be so bold, Your Honour," the Al'krey offered as his pointed ears lowered indicating that he did not appreciate criticism. "Under any other circumstance, the word choice would sound like a provocation. However, you must surely be aware that your _unique_ position as a female Twi'lek Chancellor automatically places our administration under the suspicion that it is incapable of strong leadership, particularly in times of crisis."

With that Sanura angrily slammed the stack of flimsi cards on the desk of her guest quarters. There was a part of her that wanted to believe that the Republic had moved beyond such assumptions, that it really was a beacon of light that dispelled the ignorance responsible for them, but she found herself confronting the ugly face of prejudice and intolerance again and again. And each time only served to make her more outraged that people would wallow effluence of their stupidity rather than face the possibility being wrong.

"Just hear me out, Your Honour—I meant no disrespect. None of us here are that backward to judge you on anything other than your accomplishments, but many beings are not that enlightened. And, unfortunately, Senators often represent the voice of the uneducated masses, who doubt your ability on account that you are what you are—through no fault of your own, I will add."

"Yes, but this just looks incendiary," the Lethan Twi'lek picked up one of the cards and read off "' . . . this is an attack on the sovereignty of all Republic systems which will not go unanswered or unchallenged?!'—Just listen to the tone!"

"Again, I think the tone is most appropriate. Anything less and you would portray yourself as weak and complacent," the Communications Secretary explained, "which would simply confirm any biases the public has of you, and more so the Mandalorians themselves."

Sanura bit her lip, feeling as she was speaking with a permacrete wall. "I understand your concerns about my public image, however just because one our fleets was ambushed does not mean we're going to glass the first system that looks at us funny. I'm _not_ going to create an atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion between the Republic and its neighbors, especially those that are its allies. And I'm certainly not about to do anything to rouse the public into state of mass panic or false patriotism—"

But even as she said this her focus shifted towards the headline on the holo-projector flashing: "LEFT BEHIND: REPUBLIC POWS AND MIAS DEATHS CERTAIN."

"What the—?!" she grabbed the remote control and turned the volume up to full blast: " . . . HNN is pleased to provide our viewers with an exclusive: a distress signal sent by the soldiers who did not return." Then the image faded into a recording that she had seen only days earlier: "'This is Captain Darian Ragnal of the Republic Navy Warcruiser _Dauntless_. What follows is a description of the sequence of events after my ship and four others were disabled after suffering serious damage and heavy casualties at the hands of a Mandalorian fleet of five Dreadnaughts. . ."

The color drained from her red-tinted skin as she shuddered. The realization struck her even as she stopped making out the words. Chancellor Sanura's administration had just suffered its very first press leak. And far worse than that, she had learned of the leak not from her own staff but the news media itself. "H-how in the name of the Force did HoloNet News get their grubby appendages on _that_ transmission!?!—That message was classified!"

"It looks like we've sprung a leak," Al'krey offered timidly.

"Well don't just stand there! Get on the holocomm and tell R-Sec to jam that signal immediately!"

"Right away, your Honour!"

But even as the Bothan scurried off to try to stop the holocast, Sanura knew the damage had already been done. Even with only half of the message getting through the holocast before the signal was interrupted by Republic Security, the backlash would reverberate throughout the Senate for months. And that it occurred on the same day of the memorial service was more than coincidental; it had been timed. By now, holocomms in her guest suite were already buzzing uncontrollably as her aides were frantically trying to keep up with the incoming calls. She shook her head, knowing the leak had now committed to her giving a hard line speech to avoid looking weak and to mollify the public outrage. The situation had just gotten far stickier than she had ever anticipated.

* * *

**E**ven with a pen and flimsy pad to keep her occupied, Revan grew restless. The sparsely furnished guest chambers of the Jedi Temple could only hold a young occupant's attention for so long, and the service droid walking in with her breakfast was the only break in the morning's monotony.

At first she thought of asking permission to leave the room, but she stopped short realizing that if she asked then it could be denied. Why did she have to stay in this room when there were so many interesting things on the other side of door? So immediately after the droid left, Revan made up her mind: she was going to see the rest of the Temple had to offer. The child frowned as she looked at the door, realizing there was only one problem with her plan: the big people who had put in the door controls seemed to have forgotten that galaxy was full of little people too. To open the door, she had to reach the control panel first.

The child's eyes shifted from the door to the large synthwood chair that she had tried to sit in earlier. _At least it's good for something_, she thought as she walked over to it and began pushing it from behind. The chair's legs made a low rumbling noise as they scraped across the floor. Coming to a stop right in front of the door's control panel, once again she propped herself up on the chair and stood up, grasping the back for support. She glanced at the numbered control panel that was now up to her chest and carefully typed the number sequence she had seen Master Ramunee enter in the night before. _Seven, three, two, eight, one, nine . . . and five_. She hesitated before pressing the final number, considering the possibility that she was about to do something very naughty, but she shrugged the thought off as the door slid open, reasoning that if Master Ramunee had not wanted her to leave the room, she would have never made the code to the control panel that obvious.

With the door open, Revan carefully leaned over slid off the chair. She made a quick dash to recover her pen and flimsy pad, figuring that they would come in handy later. Then she stepped through the threshold, letting the door slide shut behind her as she left, off on yet another adventure.

* * *

**T**he Republic Flag had changed little over course of fifteen thousand years. The same circular emblem that had flown over the dozen worlds, which had come together during the Unification Wars to found the Galactic Republic, now flew over fifty million star systems. The only difference was that today, on every Republic world, from those that full Senate representation to the Colonies and outlying protectorates, that flag flew at half-staff. And across the galaxy eyes were fixed on holo-receivers as HoloNet News began to transmitting from the Coronet Cathedral on Corellia.

"Master Jedi," one of the many Republic Marines that had been assigned to security detail at the state memorial service told the three robed figures that were about to enter the narthex of the cathedral, "your weapons please. They will be returned to you at the end of the service."

"Of course," Master Vrook nodded as he unclipped his lightsaber and placed it in the plasteel bin one of the other guards provided.

Arren nonchalantly reached for her utility belt expecting to find her lightsaber, and, for a split-second, her blue eyes bulged with shock. Until now, she had not been aware it was missing! She quickly regained her stoic mien as Master Edan deposited both his weapons in another bin provided for him.

The Deralian Jedi Master had changed his outer robes from the usual white to the more somber traditional black of the Jedi Shadows, out of respect for the fallen Republic soldiers, but Arren had an inkling it was also out respect for his own people where also victimize by the Mandalorians. The color seemed to enhance the Jedi Master's height, and in combination with his face-coverings painted him in an unsettling light. From the back, his robes made him look like one of the many Sith initiates he and Arren had encountered a decade ago on one of their missions to Nyssa where they infiltrated and helped disband the notorious Macrosa Order, a secret society founded on the principles of ancient Sith teachings.

After their terrible losses during Sith war, the Jedi became extremely wary of Sith influences, and so one of the first of many precautions by the Order to prevent the Sith from rising again was the infamous "Cleansing of the Nine Houses," where, by order of the Senate, the Jedi Shadows infiltrated and hunted down anyone suspected of Sith or dark side practices. The last of these missions had been the most bloody and Arren remembered it vividly. She was a padawan of fourteen at the time, and she and Edan had walked in on one of the more barbaric Macrosa rights: where the Marceti High Lord Tritum's own infant son was being "anointed" for his future position of leadership. She and Edan managed to stop the ritual before it could be completed. And as result of the Edan's intervention, the child was immediately taken in by the Order to be raised as Jedi. The boy, Malak, as he had been named for specific mentioning of his surname was avoided in order to hide his origins, was now ten and thriving at the Dantooine Enclave.

Arren dismissed the memory as she heard Edan calling her name.

"Master Arren?" her mentor questioned. "Where _is_ your lightsaber?"

"Um," the young Jedi Master gulped nervously under Vrook's suspicious glare, feeling more like a blundering padawan than a Jedi Master, "I figured I wouldn't need it for the ceremony and so I left it in the room."

"Ah," Edan seemed to consider this. For a brief moment, Arren thought she had him fooled, but then he said: "I'm continuously _amazed_ at your foresight, my dear." There was something in the way he said it that made her certain he knew. The Deralian Jedi Master's teaching style had always been different than other masters. Rather that scolding a pupil out right, he preferred subtle hints and sarcasm with just enough bite to alert learners to their errors.

He offered her his arm as she was still limping from the injury she had received the day before. After spending the night in a deep healing trance, her hip was on the mend, but it was still sore. "I still should pay for the damage done to the suite," she told him quietly. "I was responsible—"

"—nonsense, I told you it's taken care of," he cut her off.

"But what will the hotel staff think?"

"Well you know what these how these politicians are: one step off-world and they become perpetual party-animals," he grinned wryly beneath his face-covering as they sat down the reserved seats towards the nave of the building. "I hear they're worse than touring musicians."

Arren twisted her lip, suppressing the impulse to laugh. "That's not funny, Master."

"Of course it isn't," he whispered. "There are better things to cry over than broken furniture and damaged stucco, and besides, after the story on the HoloNet this morning that I doubt anyone cares about the vice-chancellor trashing his hotel room."

To this Arren remained silent; she was grateful when the assembly rose in presence of Supreme Chancellor Sanura as she walked down the aisle surrounded by her escort of Senatorial Guards. Behind her, Vice-Chancellor Antares followed closely along with his own retinue. Through the corner of her eye, the young Jedi Master briefly followed the vice-chancellor's guards, trying to spot the one she had fought with the night before.

"Yusanis took the day off," Edan declared as if purposefully answering a question she had avoided asking, "he's still recovering from his injuries."

Arren was now so glad her hood obscured her face for her cheeks flushed bright red with chagrin.

Meanwhile, amongst the service men and women from Admiral Halan's fleet that stood to attention as both the Supreme and Vice Chancellor's passed, the only officer wearing red Corellian Bloodstripes looked on in surprise.

"What's wrong?" Lieutenant Commander Megan Nayland heard a familiar whisper after she and her newly-assigned members of her squadron were seated.

Megan quickly turned towards the young ensign who sat on her right, and then back towards Vice-Chancellor Antares who wore a perfect Republic Marine dress uniform from the Sith War era.

"Yeah?" Carth Onasi asked impatiently. "He was in the service, so what?"

"Take a good look at his collar," the young woman's green eyes glared at the vice-chancellor's black jacket. "Notice anything unusual?"

The young ensign grimaced a little as he eyed Antares from head to toe. Aside from his jacket being completely covered by a rainbow of campaign ribbons from the Sith War, which was a bit surprising since the vice-chancellor appeared a bit young to have fought in the last war, nothing seemed out of place. "Do you mean that tiny green and yellow insignia on the edge of his tunic?"

"—Ssshh—That's the symbol for SD."

"Strategic Destabilization?" Carth's brows lowered suspiciously. According to most of the old cloak-and-dagger holos, the Strategic Destabilization Branch was a covert organization within the Republic Forces that infiltrated and toppled hostile governments.

Megan's only response was to quietly grab his hand and dig her nails into his flesh.

"That's totally fictional!" he said finally.

"_On_ the record," the Lieutenant Commander spoke quietly as if reminding him gently of something he was not supposed to know.

Carth threw Megan a quizzical look. "_On the record?!_," he asked. "And _off the record?_"

"You're prolly in security violation just by thinking about it," she threw him a crooked smile.

The youth considered this for a moment, then gazed back in amazement at Antares wondering exactly how many faces the man really had.

* * *

**A**rdilo was a windswept ball of brown volcanic dust. Decades ago, the Republic's Survey Corps had deemed the planet, with its barren landscape and sulfur ridden soil, unfit for colonization. Yet beneath the hill-like mounds and the endless outcroppings of ash-covered rock lived a civilization in an enormous network of hives devoted to one single-minded purpose: ardila spice. Air defense towers dotted the planet's Northern hemisphere where a frayed ribbon of dilapidated volcanoes encircled the planet's single space port.

The Ardilonian Prime Minister Panante had personally selected the site of the Central Hive. Nestled deep within the crater of an extinct volcano, linking thousands of underground tunnels, the Central Hive literally buzzed with life. From the ceiling window of his office, the portly insectiod minister could look up and see the cargo transports hovering in the space port looming in the upper part of the cavern. Beyond them the sky was a glowing blue blob over the jagged entrance of the caldera.

His green-skinned attendant, one of the worker drones, noticed his antennae were moving back and forth nervously. "Sensor sweep of the system shows no immanent threat," he offered.

"I know," Panante replied. "I've just checked the reports not five minutes ago." At first the Ardilonian leader had doubted the warning he received from the Republic. He had no real reason to trust any Republic official. Random boardings and confiscation of cargo by Republic customs caused huge problems for his cartel. Of course until Panante's own discovery that the mucus-like secretions Ardilonian workers fed to their queens had hallucinogenic affects on most other species, the system had not even been marked on any official maps.

That had been before the hives started to prosper, before he had been banished by his hive queen for a glaring abnormality: being hatched with a queen's mind in a drone's body, what she believed Ardilonian nature where only hive queens hatched as fully sentient individuals while male drones who served them barely had any self-concept. That soon changed.

As he wandered the wasteland that was Ardilo's surface, Panante was discovered by a team of Khommite explorers. Intrigued, the Khommites took him off-world. Three years later, he returned to his planet armed with knowledge of gene-altering technology that would transform his people. He began slowly at first, ambushing one or two egg transports every month or so. Soon the Ardilonian reproduction rate, which was only checked by food supply, allowed for millions upon millions of newly-hatched sentient drone workers. With the strict delineation between queens and workers blurred, the workers rebelled against their hive queens. And then, using the same technology that had transformed them, the drones manipulated their queens' biology making them little more than pre-sentient egg-laying machines. In their place Panante was chosen to lead the hives. That marked the planet's entry into the lucrative spice trade, and the beginning of fast-paced hive expansion which quickly drew the Republic's disapproval.

The Republic did not stop at condemning Ardilo's spice production, but called the genetic manipulation of the Aridolonian queens barbaric. But to Panante it was no more barbaric than nature itself, that had made his people slaves to the caprices of their females. After all, the common good outweighed the well being of a single individual. It was as simple as that.

"Minister, your transport is primed and ready," the worker reminded him gently.

"Thank you; that will be all," Panante told his aid, who quickly left the chamber. Immediately, he once again keyed the comm controls linking up to the defense fleet that hovered above in orbit. Although Vice-Chancellor Antares' warning had not been welcome, it had not entirely fallen on deaf ears. The Ardilonian minister was no fool; he knew that anything that could decimate a Republic fleet, regardless of whether or not he approved of it, was a force to be reckoned with. To that end, he had reassigned some of the cartels' armed cargo runners to bolster the system's defense fleet. Given the HoloNet description of the size Mandalorian fleet in the Vergasso Asteroids, he was confident that the hundred and thirty-eight capital ships that hung in orbit above Ardilo would easily outnumber any attack force. But that confidence vanished as soon as the comm speaker erupted in static.

* * *

"**C**ommodore!" the drone worker monitoring the sensor control panel on the _Bravado_, the command ship of the Ardilonian militia yelled. "I have sensor contact. Bearing is fifty two degrees off starboard; it's trying to jam us."

Commodore Zerind, a blue skinned Ardilonian, quickly made his way over to the sensor board. "That's not right," his antennae lowered in frustration as he looked the lone red blip on the sensor board display. The unidentified ship was at six hundred kilometers out of range of the Ardilonian surface defense guns. "It's just one ship. They see they're outnumbered, why are they giving away their position when they're not even weapons range yet?"

"Should I send squadron of fighters to investigate?" his second in command offered.

"No, with the interference field up our fighters won't be about to communicate effectively," he replied, turning to his comm officer. "Send a laser signal to the rest of the fleet, tell them to cover us while we move in for a closer look."

"Yes, Sir," comm officer replied.

"Level us off and move to intercept," the commodore ordered. "Bow gun batteries on standby—fire a warning shot once we're in range."

With that the three-hundred meter Byblos StarDrive Frigate adjusted its heading onto an approach vector with the unknown vessel, moving away from its position in high orbit. The rest of the fleet, which was a haphazard collection of vessels ranging from recommissioned Hammerhead cruisers to Heorsche-Kessel Corvettes, followed their lead vessel on cue.

* * *

**O**ff in the distance on the bridge of the _Apocalypse_ Mandalore waited; beneath his helmet visor his eyes were fixed on his chrono, marking off the seconds. He paid no attention to his younger deck commander that walked up beside him.

"Mand'alor, the Aridolonian fleet is moving into position. Estimated time within targeting range is two minutes."

The Mandalorian commander's gaze shifted towards view port where the Ardilonian ships appeared like grey and blue specks over black backdrop of space. When reconnaissance scouts brought back news that the Ardilonians had mounted a defense fleet, it was music to his ears. In addition to capturing the planet, the extra ships would be an added bonus. "Good, shut down all primary systems and prime the pulse wave generator—let them know we're happy to see them."

"Right away," the other replied turning to issue tactical orders. The _Apocalypse's_ dimmed to the glow of the auxiliary lamps as the most its core systems shut down, bathing the bridge in red light.

Pulse-wave generators had been banned in Republic space for the past ten years. They were the predecessor to the ion cannon. A large enough generator could give off a burst of electromagnetic energy that easily disabled any unhardened vessel within a one kilometer radius. A relic of earlier times, the _Apocalypse's_ electrical systems were shielded against such an attack. He stood and watched as the enemy fleet drew near. Judging by its trajectory, its commander had to be counting on his task force, although composed of smaller capital ships, still outgunning the Mandalorian Dreadnaught.

But as the dial his chrono hit its mark Mandalore knew victory had nothing to do with the odds—victory was about precision. "Fire!" his order rang across the bridge.

* * *

**C**ommodore Zerind was not used to coordinating his vessels under a sensor and communications black out. Navigating through space without sensors was like swimming blindly in an ocean; the only tool had his disposal was laser triangulation. While he could still issue accurate directions to the helmsperson, the real trouble was that the interference signal the enemy ship broadcasted made it impossible to accurately the position of the rest of the fleet, much less coordinate a perfectly timed disable-and-board operation.

"Sir, the _Varallion_ reports that the Dreadnaught's engines have shut down." the officer at the comm reported. "And they have not responded to our warning shots."

"That's very odd," the tactical officer replied. "They can't play dead and hope we won't spot them—not with ship that size."

The commodore's antennae heightened in confusion. Whatever game the Mandalorian ship was playing he did not like it at all. Why was it still jamming the com signals if it was clearly outnumbered? Blocking off communications was typically a defense tactic employed by a target whose position was already known, usually in an attempt to stall its attackers for more time. The Dreadnaught was stalling, but why? "What's its proximity to the rest of the fleet?"

"Within a click's distance," the crewperson at the helm replied.

The Ardilonian commander grimaced. "Maintain our distance at half-a-click and bring us about behind so our gunners have a clear view of their engines—" he not finished his sentence when a burst of blue light erupted from the Mandalorian ship and expanded outwards like a blue-white ripple in space that engulfed the entire task force.

The bridge lighting failed just as the wave of energy broke against the _Bravado's_ bow. Sparks and smoke gushed out of various control panels before going dark. And as his mirror-like eyes tried to adjust to the darkness after the bright flash of light, Zerind thought that he saw several explosions coming from the rest of the fleet.

The Ardilonian surveyed his darkened bridge, hoping to see if the rest of his crew was alright, but as he opened his mouth and let his tongue taste the air he could already sense the smell of charred flesh. Without any doubt, the energy surge had electrocuted some of his crewmembers.

"All systems are down!" the tactical officer announced—"_Including_ life support!"

"How much oxygen do have left?" his commander ordered.

"You think I can tell?!" the other asked incredulously. "Without the environmental controls, maybe an hour or two at the most—depending on how many of us survived that blast."

But Zerind was no longer listening, his attention had turned to the view ports were the rest of his fleet hung adrift in space. And right when he thought he had endured the worst, another Mandalorian Dreadnaught broke out of hyperspace followed by another, and another one after that. About a minute later, there were more than he could count.

* * *

**C**anderous Ordo struggled to adjust the descent angle of his newly-assigned basilisk bomber, but the droid disagreed. "_Haar'chuk!_" the Mandalorian crusader cursed loudly. He had warned his father that taking on a different warmount before an important battle was a bad idea. All basilisk warmounts were customized droids that needed time to adjust to their rider. There were the traditional models without cockpits, there were enclosed versions of the design that Mandalore preferred, and there were the two or three-person bomber models like the one he was currently riding in. Each droid had its own personality and little quirks that made it unique.

"_Udessi!_" Jagi, the warrior in the weapons control seat behind him urged. "Canderous, the stick's a little shaky 'cause of the stealth field's draining the engines."

The other warrior grimaced as the warmount's drag flaps opened, bracing itself of atmospheric entry. The maneuver was extremely risky. Although Mandalore had drawn the Ardilonian fleet away from the planet and lured their starfighters away, the basilisk riders had to maintain their stealthfields while decelerating. Every basilisk participating in the push on the planet had been equipped with extra power regulators on their sub-light engines. The slightest glitch or malfunction could throw off the angle of entry and send both droid a rider plunging to a fiery death. Over the planet's northern horizon, the thunderous tumult of two-thousand warmounts piercing its mesosphere at hypersonic speed was heard over the firing of the surface-defense guns.

"We're in the clear," Canderous declared as the bright flash of light in front of his cockpit canopy announced they had just entered the upper atmosphere.

"Okay, hull temperature is stable," Jagi eyed his sensor panel for a few seconds, "and starting to level off. Thermal sensors are operational; scanning for targets." In an interference field, heat-based sensors remained the only reliable means of honing in on anything. "Multiple contacts—bearing: ten clicks at point two degrees to port."

"I see'em," the other warrior confirmed as the basilisk bomber charged towards several dozen needle-like structures that rose out of the horizon, "shutting off main power."

With that each warmount rider in the front part of the charge deactivated their engines, gliding in towards the air-defense towers on momentum alone. This immediately shut down their stealth fields which cued the other riders behind them to prepare to engage. Red turbolaser fire tore through the line, taking out at least a dozen riders whom Canderous knew by name. He vowed to pay them proper respect after the planet was secured. Yet loosing a dozen basilisk riders in taking out the enemy defense towers was still better then letting them down any of their capital ships, which would move into position once every air-dense turret had been neutralized.

"We're in range," Canderous announced.

Behind him Jagi nodded, his finger pressing the switch to activate the droid's forward-mounted pulse-wave cannon. Much like what had just occurred in space, the forward line of basilisk bombers opened up on the enemy towards with sizzling blue-white of energy. Walls of blue sparks crackled and fizzled against the enemy deflector shields and then vanished.

"Canderous? Have you got confirmation if their shields are down?" the other asked.

"Nope, but we'll find out soon enough," Canderous said as he reactivated the droids engines and pulled up on the controls while his companion fired two orange shatter-missiles into the nearest tower that quickly disappeared in a gigantic black and orange plume of super-heated metal, rock and dust.

As the craft leveled of, the fierce-eyed warrior looked back to see a string of similar sized explosions where there had been structures just seconds earlier. "Should take a few more minutes before their power comes back online again," he observed angling his bomber on ascent vector.

Beneath his mask, Jagi grinned. "Yeah, too bad they're not going to be around that long."

"Yeah, I guess they won't get to see the fireworks."

* * *

**U**p in space, the _Apocalypse_ primary systems came to life. Mandalore's helmet visor instantly adjusted to the change in the bridge lighting. "Shut the down the comm interference field," the Mandalorian commander told the comm officer, he then immediately turned to the tactical officer. "Launch a comm buoy at the Ardilonian command vessel."

"Yes, Mand'alor," the younger Mandalorian nodded activating the launch sequence on his console. With that two-meter long grey cylinder burst from the _Apocalypse's_ bow and quick made its way towards the nearest Ardilonian vessel, latching onto its hull.

* * *

**A** loud _clunk_ followed by a high-pitched whirl of grinding metal pierced the silence of the _Bravado's_ bridge as the Mandalorian probe hit the portside bridge bulk-head and began to drill through.

The Ardilonian crew exchanged startled glances, wondering if this was yet another weapon in the Mandalorian arsenal.

"They're going to vent us into space!" one Aridonlian said frantically.

But the Commodore Zerind eyed his underling with skepticism. "Then why haven't they blown us apart?"

"Didn't you hear? They did the same thing to the Republic—they spaced the crew and then took their ships!"

Zerind was about to respond when a deep voice boomed through the bridge in Ardilonian.

"_Attention Ardilonian command vessel. Your fleet is surrounded. Your have two minutes to surrender or you will be destroyed!_"

"At least, now, they want talk about it, first," Zerind mused.

* * *

**O**n the _Apocalypse_ Mandalore listened to the voice of the Ardilonian on the bridge overhead frequency.

"_This is Commodore Zerind of the Ardilonian flagship Bravado, two whom am I speaking?_"

Meanwhile, the bridge crew looked on in surprise as their commander began speaking in what they thought had to be gibberish.

"_Commodore?_," Mandalore questioned "_Then I assume that you are the charge of your system's defense fleet?_"

"_What would be correct—I want to discuss the terms of our surrender_," Zerind continued.

"_As you wish_," the other replied. "_The terms are simple: you and your people will be taken as prisoners. Your ships will serve us, you will offer no resistance, and your planet will peacefully submit to occupation_."

"_I have no authority to speak for my entire planet!_" the voice protested.

"_I say you do_," the Mandalorian commander countered. "_You have been charged with the defense with this planet, which makes you its leader by default. Moreover, your personal refusal to come to our terms will be interpreted as an act of aggression on behalf of your people. As we speak, our warmounts are already taking out your surface defenses, and the rest of my fleet awaiting my orders above your world_."

"_You wouldn't dare!_" Zerind exclaimed. "_You wouldn't dare destroy a defenseless planet full of billions of people_"

"_That option is still available for the next_"—Mandalore looked down annoyingly as he eyed his chrono— "_thirty seconds._"

"_NO!—WAIT!!_" the Aridolonian commander yelled.

* * *

**T**he sensor display board on the _Praxis'_ bridge glowed green with all the basilisks returning from Ardilo's surface. And Caldar Ordo knew that it meant two things: first, that Mandalore had managed to deal with the threat posed by the Ardilonian fleet, which was why the interference frequency had gone down, and that the basilisk bombers had succeeded in taking down the defense guns that threatened the bombardment operation. "Open a channel to Canderous' bomber," the clan leader ordered his commsperson.

The Mandalorian at the comm panel nodded, and a few seconds later Canderous' gritty voice was heard across the bridge.

"Canderous, is the operation a go?" Caldar asked. "Did you succeed in taking out all their gun-towers?"

"Yeah," his son said over the static-filled frequency. "As far as the thermascan could tell. We lost a few riders, but we got it done."

"Acknowledged," the older Mandalorian said tersely. "The riders are cleared for landing then, _Praxis_ out." With that he turned back to his communications officer. "Signal the rest of the fleet to move into orbit and fire once they're in their pre-determined positions."

"Yes, Sir," the officer replied as he keyed up the general fleet frequency. "Attention all craft! You are hereby ordered to deploy to your attack positions! Repeat: deploy to your attack positions and fire!"

Meanwhile, Caldar returned to his command chair and as he addressed his helmsperson. "Arkya, adjust our heading to grid four-eight-two—engines at half-strength, and then hold position until I say otherwise."

"Yes, Sir," the Mandalorian female acknowledged even as the Mandalorian Dreadnaught gradually sped towards the planet.

"Tactical, keep me posted on our shields and weapon status every three minutes," the clan leader barked.

"Understood," the tactical crewperson replied even as the ships general quarters alarm sounded.

* * *

**P**rime Minister Panante watched the panic outside the space port docks in fascination. The pilot of his private luxury yacht had informed him that they would be leaving momentarily, but that did not stop him from looking out his viewport as the soldier used blaster-rifles and disruptors to keep the frenzied mobs of terrified Ardilonians away. The insectoid minister had planned his escape carefully, knowing that the air-defense towers being taken out was an unquestionable indication of an invasion. Of course their original purpose was to protect the planet from an occasional asteroid or comet collision, which up to now had been far more likely than a gigantic fleet jumping into the system.

He could still see the black smoke rising from where the defense towers had stood as the vessel sped away from the cavern above the Central Hive. There was a flash of light like lightning, but there were no clouds in the sky. Looking down again, he saw a huge white-orange blossom burst at the center of a newly-formed circular ring on the planet's crust . There was another flash of light, and this time he saw the impact: a large green laser-blast at least a hundred meters long hit just a few kilometers from where his ship had taken off. It made a ring as it struck, the way a pebble sends ripples across surface of a pound. Another smoldering plume burst into the atmosphere like an erupting boil.

Again and again, explosion after explosion, and mushroom cloud after mushroom cloud; the higher and higher his yacht got the smaller and smaller the impacts looked even if they covered the entire northern hemisphere of the planet like bits of sequence catching light on a glass marble.

* * *

**O**n Ardilo's surface, every tiny flicker of light seen from high orbit was a thirteen-kilometer column of death and destruction. The impact alone sent a seismic hammer stoke shearing rock, collapsing tunnels and crushing bodies before their ashes combined with newly-formed glass. The rising vapors from this mixture itself merged into an inferno that vaporized everything in its path. Many Ardilonians that far enough a way from an explosive hypocenter to escape being burned alive or succumbing to the radiation found themselves trapped, buried under billions of tons of dirt and stone as their network of tunnels came crashing down upon them. The brownish landscape became blackened as hyper-injected debris from the explosions ascended and merged into huge murky clouds that blotted out the planet's star. Those few that survived saw the all-encompassing darkness as confirmation that they had been forsaken by the Force.

* * *

**H**ours later Commodore Zerind's antennae were bent low as his mirror-like eyes stared coldly at the Mandalorian iron cuffs that gripped his appendages and then back at Mandalore looked on as the fleet repositioned. The Ardilonian fleet commander had no idea why Mandalore had brought him aboard the bridge of his flagship other than to gloat over the destruction of the planet. "You lied Mandalore!" he shouted in Basic. "You said you would spare the planet if I surrendered!"

The Mandalorian commander remained silent, as if answering his captive was beneath him.

"You _promised—you gave your word!_" the prisoner continued. "What does that have to say about the Mandalorian honor you and your warriors claim to have?"

Finally, Mandalore acknowledged Zerind with a sideways glance. "First of all, you are forgetting that I said my fleet was in position awaiting orders. I never fully specified what those orders were going to be, it was you who decided to assume that an attack order was contingent upon your refusal to surrender," he replied icily as he walked forward. "Second, your assumption was on the basis that I would not attack the _entire_ planet versus destroying _part_ of the planet. So I never really violated the terms or our arrangement. It was you"—he cocked a finger— "who failed to stipulate the finer points of the agreement."

With that the Ardilonian prisoner wriggled uncomfortably.

"And for future reference, all _Mando'ade_ are honor bound to keep their word dealing with equals on the battlefield. You forfeited that standing the moment you surrendered. But I am not entirely devoid of compassion: after all I did spare _most_ of your planet in light of your generous contribution to the Mandalorian Fleet."

* * *

**A**lthough the Jedi Temple on Coruscant had been a place of learning and quiet contemplation, with the new regulations passed by the Order after the Sith War, it also had become filled with children. And while Jedi training methods were constantly being adapted for younger apprentices, even the oldest Jedi teachings could not vie with a young sentient's inherently playful nature.

So, between lessons, most Jedi teachers made sure their students had plenty of recreation time. But this was not a typical recess as most beings knew it, Jedi children literally brought what they learned straight to the playground. Floating toys were a common sight. A ball would just seem to perpetually bounce from one child to another without ever being touched or caught. Occasionally one apprentice or another would fail to get a proper grip on the ball and miss it entirely. Yet, somehow, what happened occasionally to almost every other youngling was just routine for Haelynn Krell.

His hazel eyes narrowed as he stretched and stretched out with the Force, only to see it fly over his head, hit the floor and bounced out of the room into the corridor, the way it always did. All the younglings in Haelynn's clan showed great Force-potential, all of them except Haelynn. Sometimes, the boy's relationship with the Force seemed like a great big joke that everyone, except him, found funny. And it hardly helped to see Roala, his young Twi'lek clanmate, burst into a light musical giggle as the ball rolled away.

"You did _that_ on purpose," Haelynn declared, his light-brown bangs partially covered his lowered brows as the young boy tried, and failed, to make himself as cross as possible.

"Come on, Haelynn, you should've stopped it," Vorin, a thin young Muunling that was the clan's self-appointed rule's barrister, pointed out. "That's the point of the game, after all."

"Yeah, but she doesn't have to make harder than it already is for me," the young apprentice countered darkly. By now everyone in the clan had learned to manipulate their surroundings, but for Haelynn the skill had yet to consistently surface. Although he got along fine with the other children, he always strained and struggled with the most rudimentary exercises.

"Then you shouldn't have played." the other child retorted.

At this point, the padawan that normally supervised the children would have stepped in and told Haelynn's classmates to stop making him feel uncomfortable, usually to the exact opposite effect, but, thankfully, he out on an errand and was not there to embarrass the child any further.

"Okay, I'll go get it," Haelynn said finally, sulking out of the room through the double doors and into the large corridor that overlooked the most recognizable part of the Temple: the Room of a Thousand Fountains.

The gracefully carved arches adjoining the huge supporting columns were just slightly over eye-level from the opposite side of the wall, making the corridor look more like a terrace. Stone benches lined the walkway so that Jedi could sit and meditate, taking in the sound of the rushing waters, the fragrance of the gardens below and the colored lights filtering in through the gigantic stained-glass windows that surrounded the garden gallery. But Haelynn had no time to admire the scenery; he had to find his ball. And he really hoped it had not reached the point of falling through the railing down into one of the fountains, like it had a few weeks ago.

Yet just as soon as he climbed up on one of the benches and carefully leaned over the railing, sure enough there it was: a tiny blue dot bobbing up and down in one of the smaller pools that made up the network feeding into the central fountain thirty meters below. Haelynn's shoulders slumped, knowing he was in for a series of lectures; first from any Jedi that may have been meditating by the fountains below, then from any of the Agricorps workers tending the gardens who would end up fetching the ball, then his teachers, and then from his clan leader, whose candidacy for Knighthood would be questioned on account of one of his younglings regularly messing up.

The child shook his head. _All this trouble for a stupid ball_, he thought. Of course everyone else would make a big deal, saying that the whole thing was his fault because he had vainly overestimated his abilities or something like that. Adults always made things more complicated than they really were, making squares out of circles and circles out of squares. After all he was only six years-old and all he wanted was to toss the ball the way the other younglings did. Now the only way to get it back out of the fountain without alerting any grown ups was to pull it back using the Force.

His brow furrowed with concentration as he attuned himself to the toy from the air particles inside to the stitches in the synth-leather. His cheeks began burning as he focused harder than he ever had before. Blood rushed to his temples and his eyelids wrinkled as he squeezed them shut. Through the Force he could feel the ball: its weight, the density of the air inside, even the grain texture of its outer covering. And just when he thought his head would explode something wet hit him right in the nose. Haelynn jolted in surprise. His first instinct was to wipe his face, but then he looked down there was the ball rolling away from his feet and coming to a stop by one of the benches.

The boy was ecstatic. Although it was not quite the result he had planned for, it was still the first time he managed to move an object with his mind. There had been talk amongst some of the Masters that he would never acquire the skill. He had just proved them wrong. But his enthusiasm quickly as he realized no one had witnessed the feat, and, even worse, if anyone had seen it, he would still be in trouble for letting the ball drop into the fountain in the first place. Haelynn sighed; he just could not win.

He was about to grab the ball and head back to the playroom when a low noise of stone grinding on stone caught his attention. The young apprentice turned around trying to locate the source of the disturbance.

That was when Haelynn knew right away it was trouble. What he saw looked like an escapee from one of the Temple crèches, or at least a child far younger than him, pushing one of the large terra-cotta planters that stood on the railing just a little further out so the one end hug over the railing by at least ten centimeters!

"Hey!" he yelled as he grabbed the youngster and pulled her down off the bench, but not without a struggle.

Back on solid ground, the toddler crossed her arms and gave at him with a look that was at least a hundred times more disapproving than his own.

"What _were_ you doing?!" Haelynn demanded with disbelief. "That could fall and hurt someone!" He looked down over the railing and realized one of the major walkways ran directly under the planter. He was about to replace it back when she pulled back by the end of the tunic.

"No," the other child insisted. "It won't fall, not until it's _supposed_ to. It's _right_ where it should be."

She managed a firm grip on his had. "Please," her bright blue eyes pleaded. "It won't hurt anyone here, _I promise_.

Her emphasis on the last two words made him hesitate, as if he knew she was telling the truth. Haelynn stopped and looked the child over. She was tiny, very tiny; she reminded him of the stories his mother used to tell him about troublesome elves and fairies that caused all sorts of mischief. And he kept getting that funny buzzing feeling that he got whenever he was around some of the Jedi Masters. When he was tested for Force-sensitivity, Haelynn was told that he had a very special affinity towards attuning to the Force in others and he wondered if she was the reason he was able to retrieve his ball. "You're not exactly normal, are you?" he asked suspiciously.

She twisted her lip and shrugged. "From what I've heard, no one here is."

It was not her response but her unapologetic directness that made him want to change the subject. "I'm Haelynn Krell," the boy introduced himself making sure his bow was a perfect imitation of a formal Jedi greeting, including the exact words, "and you are?"

"I'm Revan," the little girl replied.

Haelynn frowned. "You shouldn't be wandering the halls, Revan."

"How come _you're_ wandering too, then?" The toddler gave him stubbornly suspicious look.

"'Cause I'm supposed to be here with the rest of the Gizka clan, and I asked you _first_," he snapped defensively.

"Okay, well I'm supposed to be here too," Revan insisted. "First I met Jolee and then he took me to meet Master Kreia, who I really didn't like very much, but she took me from Exis Station on a ship and brought me here. And then I met Norax, a big Anx who liked poking me with needles, and then Master Rammunee, who asked me all sorts of questions, and then put me in a room all by myself. I didn't like being alone all that much so I decided to do some scouting," she procured a pen and piece of flimsiplast that looked like an impromptu map, "so I don't get lost, _again_."

"Wait," Haelynn stopped, "Master Kreia brought you here? She's on the High Council—she hardly ever chooses anyone—_anyone_ as an apprentice."

"I'm not an apprentice yet. Master Kreia and Master Ramunee said the Council still has to approve of me," the other explained.

"Oh don't worry about that. That whole Council approval thing is just a formality; there's no way they won't let you in—I mean look at you—you glow!"

"I do?" Revan looked at her hands.

"Not like that," the boy smiled. "If I just look at you, you're just a little kid, but in the Force you sorta look like a big Fete light display."

"I don't understand."

"It's okay," he said reassuringly. "You will pretty soon. I couldn't figure out what the Masters were talking about either, at first. But I'm not the brightest gizka in the Clan. I'll be lucky if I'll make Padawan someday. I heard a bunch of the other apprentices from the other clans saying that I'll prolly end up in the Agricorps and I'll be digging up turnips for the rest of my life. I hope that doesn't happen cause I really _hate_ vegetables."

To that Revan cocked an eyebrow. "What's a gizka?"

"Oh, that's just the name of the clan I'm in," the youngling replied as he bent over and picked up the ball. "When you get accepted as a youngling, you get put with a group of other younglings. Your clan is kind of like your family: you eat together, sleep together, train together, and do exhibitions where you compete against other clans. I was just four when I joined my clan, and I missed my parents _a lot_ and the Gizka's made me feel welcome. We even have a real gizka as our mascot. You wanna see?"

"Um," the other child shrugged, "okay."

"Okay, just follow me," Haelynn grinned. "The dorm's not that far; we got a transparansteel tank and everything. It's astral!"

Revan smiled and nodded, trailing a few steps behind, stopping only to mark the way on her map, until they came to a corridor that ended in an intersection. The child halted a few meters before the corridor ended, her eyes sharply moving back and forth from one wall to the other.

"What's wrong?" her companion asked. "You look scared."

Her eyes finally shifted back on him, "You don't see _it_?"

"See what?"

The younger child breathed heavily realizing she had to explain. "Okay, if you don't see it, then you have to _feel it_."

"Feel what?" the boy asked.

Revan grimaced trying to find the right words. "Do you ever just get this _feeling_ like something really bad's gonna happen _exactly_ where you're standing?"

Haelynn stared at her sideways. "Um, sometimes," he admitted, "but I'm _always_ wrong. What are you talking about anyway?"

She twisted her lip a little. "Nothing, it's just the way the corners aren't round, and I can't see who's coming and—" she really wanted to say it, but decided he probably would not believe her or worse: that he would make fun of her. _It's a great place for an ambush_ She saw the tactic employed on her village: during the skirmish that followed the initial bombardment, the Mandalorians always attacked under concealment; some of them had even painted their armor so they were hard to see— "it's just not safe."

"Are you kidding?!" the other asked incredulously. "We're on Coruscant! The Temple's security is foolproof, and the Masters would never let anything happen to us, come on!" he extended his hand out reassuringly, but Revan was not particularly convinced.

_That's what my momma and papa said right before . . . _

Revan stepped carefully as they turned into the next corridor. She seemed to avoiding stepping on certain colors in the mosaic floor, but as she walked she kept seeing flashes with bodies of young children strewn all over the corridor. Only when Haelynn reached out and pulled her into the clan's dormitory did she loose the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"You're one of those worry warts, aren't you?" Haelynn observed as he looked her over. "You know: doom and gloom all the time everywhere you go."

"Not everywhere," she offered, "and sometimes—"

"—Well stop it!" the youngling declared, making his way through the series of beds and sleep couches that were on either side of the room, "we're here and we're save. And besides—" he reached in a clear rectangular container and pulled out a small yellowish-brown creature with bright green spots and held it out with both hands— "there's someone here who wants to meet you: this is Sheana—" No sooner had uttered the words when the frog-like amphibian wriggled out of his grasp and used the boy's hands as a springboard.

Revan bent sideways just in time for the animal to miss her face and land on her shoulder where made a noise that was somewhere between a croak and a whimper.

"—And she likes you."

"She?" The toddler took a long look at the gizka and then back at Haelynn. "You checked?"

With that the boy's cheeks flushed an uncomfortable red. "Well, um, _no_. There's some controversy about that in our clan: you see, most of the girls think our mascot's a she, but _a lot_ of the boys strongly believe she's a he. Technically they're both right cause gizkas are both at the same time, but, in reality, no one's right cause our RP wouldn't let us have a gizka until it was completely sterilized—so she's really more of an _it_ than anything else."

"I'm confused," Revan said finally, her blue eyes staring blankly before changing the subject. "What's an RP?"

"—Resident Padawan," a very serious voice suddenly burst into the conversation, and the toddler turned just in time to see a youth step into the dormitory. He wore a simple tunic with tan synth-leather tabards. His chocolate brown robe contrasted a delicate straw-colored braid that draped down from the nape of his neck.

"Oh!" Haelynn instantly swiped the gizka off the younger child's shoulder and tucked it away behind his back. "Hi Kavar—" he said with a big innocent smile forgetting the formal address of an apprentice to a padawan in the presence of a stranger—"um, I mean _Master_ Kavar."

"Haelynn, you're late to class _again_. What are you doing here?" the padawan's clear blue eyes quickly shifted on the boy's companion. Kavar would later recall that from the moment he first saw Revan he instantly knew something about her that was very different from other Jedi hopefuls, something he could not exactly place. "And who's your friend?"

"Um, this is Revan," the Jedi apprentice nodded as he deftly reached backwards and dropped the gizka back in its holding tank. "I was . . . um . . . just showing her around; she's gonna be an apprentice pretty soon."

The padawan grimaced as he studied other child. There was a certain sharpness about her. Her pitch black hair simply disagreed with her pale cheeks, and her face had none of the soft curves that other human children had. She had these white-blue eyes that seemed to have been frozen in terror one too many times. But just as he thought he understood the person behind them, her gaze hardened and those same sad looking eyes bore down on him with an intensity of two blue-glowing proton torpedoes. Kavar could not shake the feeling that he was being weighed, measured and catalogued for further scrutiny, like she was sizing him up just looking for a weakness. "Then she's a guest still, which means she can't be in this part of the Temple until she has been admitted."

"Maybe she got lost?" the boy suggested.

To that the other child objected whole-heartedly. "I'm not lost!" she exclaimed pointing at her map. "I know _exactly_ where I am!"

"Alright," Kavar spoke evenly, "then you should have an easy time following me to the Guest Center"—his gaze drifted back on Haelynn— "just as Haelynn should have no trouble _getting to class immediately_."

"—Um, good idea!" Haelynn answered quickly taking the hint; he turned back to Revan, "I'll prolly see you later. Nice meeting you."

"—Nice meeting you too, Haelynn," the little girl called back as she watched him walk out into the corridor and go in the opposite direction from where Kavar was now standing.

"This way," the padawan said, waiting for her. The child quietly stepped out of the room, and Kavar made sure the door slid closed behind them.

"So, how come I'm not allowed be in certain places?" Revan asked as they walked.

"Because," Kavar kept walking without looking back, "there are things in the Temple only Jedi are allowed to see; it keeps information out of the hands of people who should not have it." They came to a turbolift and waited.

"Why?"

"Let's just say some things within the Order _stay_ within the Order. There are very important artifacts and historical teachings that are very dangerous to those who are untrained in the Jedi way."

"Like holocrons?" the child questioned as the turbolift doors opened and she stepped inside.

"You know about those?" Kavar's eyes widened.

"Uh huh."

"How? They're all kept in lock down, only Masters are allowed in the Holocron Room," he said doubtfully.

"Cause I helped Master Kreia find two of them on Exis Station," the child replied as the turbolift stopped at their destination.

The Padawan considered this. "Well, you do have an unsual radiance in the Force," he admitted finally as he walked out. "And holocron technology tends to be more responsive to highly Force-sensitive individuals." He stopped and looked at her. "Where did you say you found them exactly?"

"In a storage room," the child said as she followed him towards the reception desk inside the Temple Guest Center, "with lots of dusty books and scrolls. I didn't really like it—It made my eyes itch."

"And I take it you weren't supposed to be there either," the padawan declared as he stopped at the desk.

"It would have helped if I had known where there was at the time," Revan pointed out, but Kavar was not listening. He was busy talking to another big person.

"Greetings, Master Kavar, how may I assist you?" a young Nautolan female asked the Padawan from behind the desk. Further in the room her cohorts were watching a holovision projector that was transmitting images from the memorial service on Corellia.

"Greenings, Mistress Nelia," the teenager nodded politely, gesturing down at the ruddy-haired toddler just barely taller than his boots. "I found this child wandering the Temple. She's not wearing the standard tunic so I figured she must be a guest. One of my younglings said that she might be an admission candidate. I'm hoping you could verify that and keep her out of trouble until then."

Revan saw her own reflection in Mistress Nelia's big black eyes. "We'll do our best," the Nautolan told him.

"You always do," the padawan bowed and turned to leave.

"Now," the Nautolan receptionist pointed. "You have a seat in one of those chairs over there until I can key up your whereabouts on the computer."

Revan frowned, sulking over to one of the purple-cushioned waiting chairs and sat down. Apparently Mistress Nelia had more important priorities like watching holovision.

In fact, the entire Guest Center staff stood transfixed at the projector as the HNN commentator mentioned something about there being eighteen thousand, four hundred and fifty-six candles lit in memory of those who had fallen the previous week's ambush.

From where she sat in the front of the office, the child's brows came together. What was it about numbers that adults kept messing up? First there were too few fatalities, now there were too many. "You know that's totally wrong, right?" Revan declared with great annoyance. "_A lot_ of them are _still alive!_"

That was right before Mistress Nelia told her to "_shush_."

* * *

**F**ive familiar notes resounded the fanfare, cleanly amplified by the acoustics of the Coronet Cathedral. The entire assembly arose to sing the most recognizable melody in the galaxy: the anthem of the Galactic Republic.

_All stars burn as one  
in unity.  
All daughters and sons  
born to live in liberty  
every planet and sun  
shines in integrity  
though many, yet one  
conjoint and still free._

Amid the tempest of tenors, baritones and bases that were the bulk of the service personnel in attendance a single alto broke through the melody, loudly singing the third highest harmonic line that was part of the traditional eight-voiced arrangement.

_All hearts beat as one  
in amity.  
Our choices all made  
in constancy  
Amid every difference  
one goal will remain:  
to live free and thrive  
the ultimate aim_

But there was little amity in the glares Megan Nayland got from her less musically-inclined peers who got thrown off by her singing. Nevertheless, Carth Onasi was grateful that no one from the Delta Squadron could work up the nerve to tell the young Lieutenant Commander off, for no one paid any attention when his own voice cracked half-way through the first stanza or that he mistakenly skipped over and went into the last stanza, as was customary on less formal occasions. Out of the corner of his eye, the young ensign stole a glimpse of his friend half-expecting her usual smugly obstinate grin only to see tears streaming down her cheeks.

_All wounds bleed as one  
in agony  
our kinship of blood  
shed in adversity  
And yet not in vain  
but for us all  
our heroes braved death  
and still answer the call_

Carth sighed inwardly; there was just something about seeing a woman cry that made him feel so helpless. He remembered after his father's death, his mother put up an emotionless barrier that had fooled all their neighbors into thinking she was fine. But he knew differently. At night, when she thought her son was sound asleep, Belinda Onasi would cry, her soft whisping sobs breaking the silence of their otherwise peaceful home. He remembered laying in bed listening, mentally berating himself over not being able to do anything about it and vowing that, for her sake, he would not let himself cry—a vow he had broken on several different occasions. But he was not going to do it now—no matter how much he wanted to! _Do something, damn it!_ That part of him that wanted to fix things, the part that always sprung into action whenever he was about to cry, compelled him to reach over into his pocket, pull out a tissue and offer it to his commanding officer.

Megan snatched the tissue and quietly blew her nose during the interlude following the third stanza.

_All tears fall as one  
in empathy  
in joy and in pain  
in blessing and calamity  
their flood sweeps away  
distrust and distain  
despite language and culture  
their meaning remains_

As the music swelled and switched into a higher key the Lieutenant Commander quietly reached over and gently squeezed the young ensign's hand, as if thanking him.

Carth threw Megan a look. For a brief moment, he knew what she was thinking, the same thing everyone else was thinking: they were all part of something far greater than anything one person could do alone—he was part of a grand tradition that spanned six-hundred generations that had come together despite their innumerable differences in the name of one all-common good. It was this one single thought; a thought implicitly permeated his being when he had found himself alone in the cockpit that made him rejoin the assembly singing the final stanza. In spite of the cracks and gurgles, Carth sung out in the sincere hope that someday his children and his children's children would one day sing the same song and know the same thing:

_In dark days of old  
our light never failed  
and whatever fate holds  
in tears and travail  
freedom's light shines  
in the darkest of night  
kindling a hope  
that forever burns bright_

Moments later, after everyone was seated, Supreme Chancellor Sanura stepped up to the platform and approached the podium as quietly and as reverently as possible with two Senate Guards right behind her. The lethan Twi'lek took a deep breath. This was not about being coy, demure or seductive; it was not about anything anyone regularly associated with the females of her species. She was the elected leader of the free universe, and now she was being counted upon to be a pillar of strength and stability in a time of fear and doubt. "Today we join our heavy hearts throughout the Galaxy as we mourn and honour our fallen brethren: the sons, the daughters, the brothers, the sisters, the husbands, the wives, mothers and fathers that have gone on in the Force in the wake of a brutal attack on our fleet in the Outer Rim that came without warning or provocation."

As she sat listening to the address, Arren heard Master Edan snort quietly when the chancellor pronounced the word "unforgivable." When she turned to look, she saw the Jedi Master frowning hard enough that his dark eyebrows were peaking through his face-covering. _What's wrong?_ she asked him in the Force.

Edan grimaced impatiently. _The rhetoric, that's what's wrong. It's not her place to say what is and is not unforgivable_.

"In the course of the last six days we have watched horrified as the death toll continued to climb astronomically, we listened to stories of defenseless starfighters blown from the sky, of soldiers sacrificing themselves and their ships in the face of overwhelming odds," Sanura continued.

_Yes, odds the Senate itself created when it decided to shortchange the military,_ Edan thought to himself, not particularly liking the direction he sensed the speech was going.

"And yet this horror cannot compare to the grief of those of you who lost friends and family, those you who received last minute letters from their loved ones aboard the captured vessels and those you who witnessed the attack-first hand. It is to you, the victims of this senseless act, that the Republic extends its deepest sympathies. You are not alone in this tragedy. The strength of millions of star systems stands behind you in your time of need. For this cowardly attack is an affront to all of us, our laws, our children and our way of life. It is an attack on the sovereignty of all Republic systems, which will not go unanswered or unchallenged."

With that Edan nearly shook his head with disgust. _I can't believe she is doing this_, Arren heard him say. _She is capitalizing on the raw emotion of a moment to put a gloss on it and make herself look good politically while ignoring the Republic's own contribution to the Mandalorian attack_.

The younger Jedi Master studied her former teacher intently. _Why are you so surprised? You know politicians do it all the time_.

_Because evil requires two parties: the one willing to carry it out and the one who will do nothing to prevent it_, he thought. _Blame never rectifies anything, all it does it is make things worse_.

"Through its long history the Republic has always been the light-bearer for the rest of the Galaxy, a bringer of civility, peace and prosperity to all systems and all sentients. And whenever that light was threatened by those who would bring chaos and darkness, it has always by Will of the Force prevailed. We will prevail again, even as we mourn in the face of tragedy. It is our duty to the memory so many lives lost that we unite against those who would tear our Republic apart."

_Too little, too late after the fact_, the Jedi Master thought indignantly.

"Even as we meditate and on eight-teen thousand, seven-hundred and fifteen names, whose lives were snuffed so suddenly, let us be firmly mindful that their sacrifice is a shining reminder that the spirit of the Republic is strong and that the Force is with us. It was with our forbearers as it is with us now. It was with the crew of the _Dauntless_ as they continued transmitting the messages from their crippled fleet knowing that these were the final words the families of their crews would ever hear from them. It was with the two young starfighter pilots who plunged their spacecraft through a maelstrom of asteroids in a desperate move to escape their pursuers, only to bring down the interjector field that held their fleet in place . . ."

As he sat listening to Sanura's address, Carth raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Did she just mention us?" he asked Megan in hushed whisper.

"Sshhh! Quiet, Carth!" Megan hissed as she nodded towards the front of the room over to where Vartan Tabari, the Director of Republic Intelligence was staring at his communicator with a worried expression on his face just before getting up and quietly muttering something to High Admiral Vinicus.

"Something's up," the young woman said quietly as Vinicus got up and took one of the blue-armored guards aside, "and whatever it is, it's not good."

The Senate guard's eyes widened and quickly keyed up his wrist communicator and started speaking. Just then, several more guards immediately activated their helmet receivers. Carth looked on skeptically, but then he saw the lead Senate guard quietly walk up to where the Vice-Chancellor was sitting and whisper something into his ear. With that, Antares immediately rose from his seat and began shuffling into the side aisle followed by the rest of his guards.

Meanwhile Sanura continued her speech even as she noticed that all eight of her guards were standing at the edge of the platform waiting for her to finish. " . . . And it will continue to be with us so long as we are vigilant, remaining true to one another and to our purpose of bringing the light of liberty to all who dwell in fear and darkness. In this dark hour of grief, we uplift the names of these extraodinary people so that posterity may know them as heroes who strove to make universe better place for all of us, just as we know that they are at peace. May the Force guide and bring comfort to the grieved and the helpless. And may it be with us all. " Upon concluding her address, instead of returning to her seat, the Supreme Chancellor was quietly escorted out of the room to surprise of many.

Through the Force, Arren quickly sensed an uneasy tension growing in the room. _Something is wrong_, she told Edan through the Force.

But the Deralian Jedi Master was already ahead of her. _There's been another attack_, he replied. _This time on Ardilo; early reports are still coming in_.

Arren looked stunned. _Three attacks in three weeks time! It almost looks like an invasion_.

_That may very well be the case_, her former master replied. _The Senate has good reason to be concerned, what affects the Outer Rim will eventually affect the Republic_. But Edan's attention now shifted to a more immediate matter: as the most senior Jedi Master in attendance it fell to him to speak at the service on behalf of the Jedi Order.

Vrook and Arren watched as he calmly approached the podium. His expression was stern, his gaze unnerving as if he were about to lecture a group of delinquent Jedi hopefuls. And he took his time, letting an uncomfortable silence descend on the assembly. "It's a question that Jedi are often asked: the question of why. Why is there so much evil in our universe? Why do terrible things happen to good people? In the face of the great loss of life, once again, the question again reverberates. But the question itself is deceptive, for it does not come out of a need to know why but out of a need to vindicate ourselves by casting blame on others, as if blame itself will somehow make up for the lives lost. Each of us has a unique point of view: we have our own agendas and our own way of responding. The HoloNet networks turned taken the opportunity to boost their ratings with sensational headlines. Similarly, our public officials have wasted no time to pander to the outpouring of sentiment that follows such a tragedy, as we generally expect them to. While it is natural for sentients to come together in the face of such a tragedy, the real tragedy in all this is one few will shed tears over: that it takes a tragedy to shock us out of our comfortable routines and apathy to come together as a people." Another pause came, as if he were waiting for his audience to catch up with what he was saying.

"What we really coming together for? Ideally, to honor those who have passed on, their memory and their choices. But are we really doing that if we allow ourselves to be blinded by our grief and sorrow if we simply take the opportunity to put our own spin on their stories and to push our own agendas? Or if we hide behind their deaths to justify blinding ourselves to our own contribution in the chain of causality and do little else? Moreover that how you would have had your own memory honored you would have been among the fallen? The question remains unanswered if we wallow in our sorrow and use it as an excuse not to take any responsibility. When do that we leave ourselves vulnerable for history to repeat itself, and we set up another generation of young people to fall. And so the real question is: how do we as individuals deal with tragedy? Do we adopt the victim mentality and blame everyone else for our pain? Or do we examine ourselves, reflect on what we lost and vow to take steps to avert it at the next opportunity. The choice lies with each of us; choose wisely."

**1. One quick note:** "All Stars Burn as One" is the official anthem of the Galactic Republic which can be verified by reading_ Cestus Deception_. No official lyrics exist to this song, I used the title as a point of departure by placing it as the first line of the first stanza. Aside from the first line, who belongs to Steve Barnes, the rest of the lyrics are completely original.


End file.
